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Figaro:    The  Life  of  Beaumarchais 


From  an  engraviug  by  Saint- Aitbiii,   a'ui    inv    p 


[Frontispiece. 


Figaro: 

The  Life  of  Beaumarchais 


By  John  Rivers 

Huthor  of  "Greuze  and  His  Models"  and  "Louvet; 
Revolutionist  and  Romance  Writer" 


With  Eighteen  Illustrations 


LONDON:    HUTCHINSON    &    CO. 
PATERNOSTER    ROW,    E.C. 


TO 

GEORGE    MORTON    WILLIS 

IN    WHOM 

I    HAVE    FOUND 

THE    THOUSANDTH    MAN 


PREFACE 

"  The  King  of  France,"  wrote  Montesquieu  in  his  Lettres  Persanes, 
has  no  gold-mines,  like  his  neighbour  the  King  of  Spain,  but  he  has 
greater  riches,  for  he  draws  his  wealth  from  the  vanity  of  his  sub- 
jects— a  more  inexhaustible  source  of  supply  than  any  mines. 
He  has  been  known  to  undertake  and  sustain  great  wars  with  no 
other  funds  than  those  drawn  from  the  sale  of  titles  of  honour,  and 
yet,  by  a  prodigy  of  human  pride,  his  troops  were  paid,  his  towns 
fortified,  and  his  fleets  equipped."  The  journeyman  watchmaker, 
of  the  witty  tongue  and  unbridled  pen,  the  secret  agent,  the 
counsellor  of  kings,  the  millionaire  merchant-adventurer  whose 
energy  and  daring  contributed  so  largely  to  the  success  of  the 
Colonies  in  their  struggle  for  independence,  the  author  of  two  of  the 
most  sparkling  comedies  ever  written,  the  gay,  open-handed,  cool- 
headed,  hot-blooded  creature  whose  amazing  career  we  propose  to 
follow  in  these  pages  must  be  numbered  among  those  whose  vanity 
went  to  fill  the  coffers  of  the  State. 

Of  course  Figaro  was  not  his  real  name,  but  then  neither  was 
Beaumarchais,  for  in  the  least  unpleasant,  as  it  was  the  happiest, 
pleasantry  made  at  his  expense,  we  are  told  that  "  the  Sieur  Caron 
borrowed  the  name  of  Beaumarchais  from  one  of  his  wives  and  lent 
it  to  one  of  his  sisters  " — a  gibe  which  doubtless  annoj^edhim  con- 
siderably, for  in  a  sarcasm  it  is  only  the  truth  that  stings.  In  view, 
then,  of  the  precedent  which  he  himself  has  set,  we  have  no  com- 
punction in  borrowing  the  name  of  Figaro  from  the  most  memorable 
child  of  his  imagination  and  lending  it  to  this  biography  of  his 
creator.  We  shall  find,  indeed,  as  we  proceed,  that  our  hero's 
character,  his  joyous  adventures,  and  the  dramatic  changes  of  his 
fortune  are  so  clearly  reflected  in  those  of  his  ingenious  valet  that  it 
is  by  no  means  easy  to  define  the  limits  of  their  respective  activities. 
And,  lastly,  if  Caron  made  the  name  of  Beaumarchais  famous,  the 
latter  rendered  the  name  of  Figaro  more  famous  still. 


5,' 


>  4 


PREFACE 

Beaumarchais  was  a  spell-binder,  and  has  succeeded  in  castii 
the  glamour  of  his  personality  over  most  of  his  biographers  as  sure 
as  he  did  over  the  majority  of  his  contemporaries.  An  excessi-" 
indulgence  towards  the  faults  of  his  hero  is,  indeed,  the  chief  blemis 
of  M.  de  Lomenie's  monumental  work,  which  must,  nevertheles 
always  hold  high  rank  among  the  world's  greatest  literary  bi 
graphics.  In  his  fascinating  Histoire  de  Beaumarchais,  the  devote 
Gudin  de  la  Brenellerie,  like  a  true  Boswell,  sees  no  faults  whatev 
in  his  friend,  and  later  M.  Lintilhac  and  many  others  have  been  ev 
ready  to  take  up  the  cudgels  on  his  behalf.  As  a  result  of  the  effor 
of  these  brilliant  apologists  a  legendary  figure  of  Beaumarchais  h; 
been  built  up  which  is  not  altogether  in  accordance  with  the  fact 
The  perusal  of  many  unpublished  MSS.  and  several  years'  stuc 
of  his  career  have  led  us  to  the  conclusion  that  his  character  was  nc 
perfect,  and  that  it  is  possible  to  accept  his  uncorroborated  eviden( 
too  confidently.  But  in  spite  of  all  the  reservations  we  shall  find 
necessary  to  make,  the  life  of  Beaumarchais  must  for  long  remain  or 
of  the  most  astonishing  challenges  which  history  has  ever  offered  1 
fiction. 

J.R. 

August,  1922. 


CONTENTS 


CHAP. 

I.— In  which  the  Handsome  Watchmaker   comes  to 

Court  

II.— Mme.  Francquet  and  the  First  Marriage  of  Beau 

MARCHAIS 

III.— The  Duel 

IV. — Some  Early  Adventures  of  Beaumarchais    . 
V. — An  Adventure  in  Spain  .... 

VI. — In  Old  Madrid       ...... 

VII. — ^The  Story  of  the  Beautiful  Creole     . 
VIII.— Beaumarchais  in  His  Early  Plays 
IX. — Mme.    LEv:feQUE    and   the    Second    Marriage    of 

Beaumarchais 

X. — Beaumarchais  at  Law 

XI. — Beaumarchais,    the    Mad   Duke,    and   the    Demi 
Mondaine     ....... 

XII. — Beaumarchais  in  Prison         .... 

XIII. — How  "  Louis  XV.  overthrew  the  Old  Parlement 

and  Fifteen  Louis  the  New  "    . 
XIV. — How  "  Louis  XV.  overthrew  the  Old  Parlement 

and  Fifteen  Louis  the  New  "  (continued)  . 
XV. — Concerning   Mlle.   Willermaula   and   the  Third 
Marriage  of  Beaumarchais 

XVI. — On  Secret  Service 

XVII. — Beaumarchais  and  the  Brigands  of  the  Leichten 

holtz 

XVIII. — A  Mysterious  Affair 

XIX. — "  The  Barber  of  Seville  "     . 
XX. — Beaumarchais  and  the  Chevalier  d'Eon     . 
XXI. — The  Rehabilitation  of  Beaumarchais    . 
XXII. — Beaumarchais  in  conflict  with  the  Players. 
XXIII. — Beaumarchais  closes  his  Account  . 
XXIV. — In  which  Beaumarchais  discovers  America  . 
XXV. — Beaumarchais  and  Voltaire  .... 
XXVI. — About  "  The  Marriage  of  Figaro  " 
XXVII. — "  The  Marriage  of  Figaro  "  . 
CXVIII. — Beaumarchais  and  Mirabeau. 
XXIX. — The  Tribulations  of  a  Knight-Errant. 
XXX. — Tarare,  and  the  last  Incarnation  of  Figaro 
XXXI. — Beaumarchais  and  the  Deluge 
XXXII.— The  Exile's  Return,  Last  Years  and  Death 
A  Selected  Bibliography       .... 
vii 


6 

12 
20 
28 

43 
55 
71 

78 
82 

86 

lOI 

107 

125 

139 
143 

150 
158 
167 
190 
199 
203 
209 
214 
226 
232 
242 
271 

275 
285 
292 
306 
313 


LIST    OF    ILLUSTRATIONS 


p.  A.  Caron  de  Beaumarchais 
Madame  de  Pompadour 
Madame  Adelaide  de  France  . 

Louis  XV 

Sophie  Arnould     . 

The  Third  Madame  de  Beaumarchais 

Madame  Dubarry 

Marie  Antoinette  . 

J.  F.  La  Harpe 

Sophie  Arnould 

The  Chevaher  D'^feon 

The  Chevalier  D'Eon  de  Beaumont 

Voltaire         .... 

Dumourier   .... 

Louis  XVL 

Mole     ..... 

Gabriel  Honor^  Riquetti,  Comte  de  Mirabeau 

Beaumarchais        ..... 


Frontispi 
Facing  p. 


FIGARO : 

THE  LIFE  OF  BEAUMARCHAIS 


CHAPTER  I 

IN    WHICH    THE    HANDSOME    WATCHMAKER   COMES    TO    COURT 

THE  arts  and  graces  of  the  incomparable  Madame  de 
Pompadour  had  for  ten  years  held  almost  undisputed 
sway  over  the  withered  heart  of  her  blase  monarch  when, 
in  1755,  a  pushful  young  man  with  passably  impudent 
eyes,  ingratiating  manners  and  an  imperturbable  self- 
possession,  made  his  first  appearance  at  Versailles.  He 
was  there  by  order  of  the  King  to  submit  for  the  royal 
approval  a  minute  watch,  "  the  smallest  that  h-ad  ^ver 
been  made,"  a  masterpiece  of  skill  and  ingenuity  in  an 
art  which  he  had  already  carried  to  a  perfection  beyond 
anything  achieved  by  his  contemporaries.  Most  members 
of  the  court  circle  knew  him  as  Pierre  Augustin  Caron, 
son  of  the  royal  watchmaker  of  the  Rue  Saint  Denis; 
for,  eighteen  months  earlier,  Lepaute,  the  doyen  of  his 
craft,  presuming  upon  his  established  reputation,  had 
claimed  as  his  own  a  new  escapement  for  watches  and 
clocks,  which  the  young  man  declared  he  himself  had 
invented  and  shown  to  the  older  man  as  a  friend  of  the 
family.  To  divulge  his  secret  before  his  discovery  had 
been  officially  established  was,  doubtless,  imprudent ; 
but  trust  in  the  probity  of  others  is  at  least  a  proof  of 
probity  in  oneself.  Pierre  Augustin  was  not  the  man 
to  submit   tamely   to   an   injustice.     He  made   so  much 


Figaro  :    The  Life  of  Beaumarchais 

noise,  and  aired  his  grievance  with  such  a  combination 
of  energy,  resolution  and  shrewdness,  that  he  not  only 
won  his  cause  against  heavy  odds,  but  proved  himself 
to  be  a  man  of  affairs  of  the  first  order,  and,  what  was 
more,  contrived  to  attract  the  interest  of  royalty  itself. 

On  this  first  visit  to  court,  Pierre  Augustin  for  a  brief 
space  sunned  himself  in  the  smiles  of  august  personages, 
and  adroitly  assured  himself  of  further  audiences  by  arousing 
the  royal  curiosity  about  other  examples  of  his  art,  and, 
above  all,  by  winning  the  benevolent  interest  of  Mesdames, 
the  King's  daughters,  and  of  Madame  de  Pompadour  as 
well.  During  the  next  few  months  he  became  quite  a 
familiar  figure  at  Versailles,  and  was  so  successful  in 
disposing  of  his  wares  to  the  King,  the  princesses,  the 
favourite,  and  her  favourites,  that  he  was  soon  appointed 
by  royal  warrant  to  be  one  of  the  Court  watchmakers, 
and  was  able  to  set  up  a  shop  on  his  own  account. 

The  son  of  a  Protestant  watch  and  clock  maker,  Pierre 
Augustin  Caron,  the  future  Beaumarchais,  was  born  on 
the  24th  January,  1732,  over  his  father's  shop  in  the  Rue 
Saint  Denis,  near  the  Rue  des  Lombards,  and  almost 
under  the  shadow  of  the  pillars  of  Les  Halles.  He  was 
fortunate  in  his  family.  His  father,  Andre  Charles,  was 
a  man  of  many-sided  talent,  whose  Calvinistic  austerity 
was  tempered  by  a  fine  taste  in  literature  and  the  arts, 
a  generous  seasoning  of  Gallic  salt,  and  an  inexhaustible 
fund  of  vitality — that  most  universally  attractive  quality 
to  men  and  women.  His  only  surviving  son,  Pierre  Au- 
gustin, was  never  remarkable  for  Calvinistic  austerity, 
but  all  the  other  most  striking  traits  of  his  father's  character 
were  transmitted  to  him  in  an  intensified  form,  combined 
with  others  peculiar  to  himself. 

Andre  Charles  Caron  was  a  native  of  the  former  province 
of  Brie,  being  born  at  Lizy-sur-Ourcq,  near  Meaux,  on 
the  26th  April,  1698.  He,  too,  was  the  son  of  a  clock- 
maker,  Daniel  Caron,  and  his  wife,  Marie  Fortain.  These 
grandparents  of  our  man  were  as  poor  as  a  family  of  fourteen 
could  possibly  make  them.  Andre  Charles  was  the  fourth 
child.  Being  members  of  a  religion  which  had  been 
banned  since  the  Revocation  of  the  Edict  of  Nantes  in 
1685,  and  all  civil  rights  denied  them  (including  that  of 


The  Handsome  Watchmaker 

legal  marriage),  they  had  probably  been  united  furtively 
by  a  hedge  parson.  This  was  in  1694.  One  of  the  sons 
rose  to  be  a  captain  of  grenadiers  and  to  be  decorated  with 
the  Croix  de  Saint  Louis,  and  a  second  to  be  a  director 
of  the  India  Company  and  a  Secretaire  du  Roi.  Andre 
Charles,  as  a  youth,  enUsted  in  the  dragoons  of  Rochepierre 
under  the  name  of  Caron  d' Ailly,  and  was  finally  discharged 
in  172 1.  In  the  same  year  he  established  himself  in  Paris 
to  study  watch  and  clock  making.  A  month  later  he 
abjured  the  faith  of  his  fathers  and  was  received  into  the 
Catholic  Church.  When  asking  to  be  admitted  as  a  master 
clockmaker  in  the  following  year,  he  was  careful  to  urge 
the  fact  of  his  recent  conversion  as  a  clinching  argument 
in  support  of  his  application.  After  a  few  years'  contact 
with  the  world,  conscience,  in  some  people,  reflects  their 
interests  as  faithfully— and  unconsciously— as  a  mirror.  ^ 

His  request  being  granted,  Andre  Charles  was  married 
on  the  13th  July,  1722,  to  Marie  Louise  Pichon.  The 
father  of  the  future  Beaumarchais  was  a  person  of  culture, 
not  only  master  of  the  art  by  which  he  earned  his  hving, 
but  a  man  of  considerable  literary  and  scientific  attainments. 
Thus,  in  1746,  when  the  Governor  of  Madrid  was  inquiring 
into  the  best  methods  of  dredging  rivers  and  ports,  it 
was  to  the  watchmaker  of  Paris  that  he  applied,  as  a  well- 
known  authority  on  the  subject.  These  were  the  first 
relations  of  the  family  with  Spain,  which  were  to  be  so 
fruitfully  resumed  eighteen  years  later  by  his  son.  Yet, 
in  spite  of  his  many  gifts,  Andre  Charles  never  succeeded 
in  making  his  way,  and  although  at  one  time  or  another 
he  made  a  good  deal  of  money,  he  was  frequently  in  pe- 
cuniary straits,  for  freedom  from  such  anxieties  depends, 
not  so  much  on  the  amount  of  one's  income,  as  on  one's 
prudence  in  handling  it.  Andre  Charles  in  his  latter  years 
lived  on  a  pension  allowed  him  by  his  devoted  son. 

Pierre  Augustin  had  six  sisters,  who,  Hke  their  brother, 
were  all  skilled  musicians,  and  could  "turn  a  song  (words 
and  music)  as  neatly  as  another  could  turn  an  omelette," 
and,  being  anything  but  prudes,  their  songs  are  frequently 
broader  than  they  are  long.  It  was  a  joyous  and  hospit- 
able household,  over  the  watchmaker's  shop  in  the  Rue 
Saint  Denis,  as  any  that  you  could  find  in  Paris  ;  and  the 
musical  evenings  and  amateur   theatricals  regularly  held 

3 


Figaro  ;   The  Life  of  Beaumarchais 

there  soon  became  known  to  a  wide  circle  of  people,  and 
at  length  came  to  be  spoken  of  even  at  court. 

Young  Caron  was  thirteen  when  his  formal  education 
suffered  a  permanent  interruption  by  his  father  taking 
him  from  school  that  he  might  devote  his  whole  time  and 
energies  to  learning  the  art  of  watchmaking,  of  which 
Andre  Charles  was  extremely  proud.  But  even  at  that 
age,  we  are  bound  to  say  that  the  youth  gave  proof  of 
knowing  quite  as  much  as  was  good  for  him,  if  we  may 
judge  by  the  first  fruits  of  his  pen — a  letter  in  prose  and 
verse,  addressed  to  his  sisters,  Marie  Josephe  (who  had 
recently  married  an  architect  named  Guilbert  and  gone 
to  Hve  at  Madrid)  and  Marie  Louise  (known  as  Lisette), 
who  had  gone  with  her.  Both  the  prose  and  verse  of 
this  epistle  are  as  astonishing  for  their  effrontery  as  for 
their  precocity,  but  they  flow  from  the  youth's  pen  with 
an  ease  and  felicity  which  prove  that  he  could  not  have 
been  such  an  idler  as  he  would  have  us  think.  Comment- 
ing on  a  passage  of  this  letter,  when  an  old  man, 
Beaumarchais  says  :  "I  had  at  this  time  a  madcap  girl 
friend,  who,  making  a  laughing-stock  of  my  ardent  youth, 
had  just  married.  I  wanted  to  kill  myself."  Here,  at  any 
rate,  is  quite  enough  evidence  to  establish  the  relationship 
between  Comte  Almaviva's  page  in  the  Barbier  de  Seville 
and  Le  Manage  de  Figaro  and  the  watchmaker's  apprentice 
Pierre  Augustin  Caron.  Truly  the  child  is  father  to  the 
man,  and  in  this  sense  Cherubin  is  the  worthy  sire  of 
Figaro. 

There  is  no  denying  the  fact  that  Pierre  Augustin  was 
not  always  a  model  apprentice.  He  had  a  frantic  love  of 
music,  which  often  led  him  to  neglect  his  work,  combined 
with  an  equally  undisciplined  taste  for  other  and  less 
innocent  amusements.  At  one  time  his  conduct  became 
so  bad  that  his  father  turned  him  out  of  the  house,  and 
only  consented  to  receive  back  the  prodigal  on  the  inter- 
cession of  his  mother,  and  after  the  most  tearful  promises 
of  amendment  and  a  prompt  acceptance  of  a  schedule 
of  stern  conditions  which  was  to  govern  his  hfe  throughout 
the  term  of  his  apprenticeship.*  This  time  his  father 
succeeded  in  really  frightening  him,    and  he  set  himself 

*  See  Memoires  secrets  (Bachaumont),  v,  23,  p.  60;  and  Correspondance 
secrete,  v.  15,  p.  32. 


The  Handsome  Watchmaker 

whole-heartedly  to  making  his  mark  in  his  profession. 
Through  the  following  years  he  gave  his  father  no  cause  of 
complaint  ;  on  the  contrary,  old  Caron  became  excessively 
proud  of  his  son.  And  then  came  the  invention  of  the 
famous  escapement,  and  the  winning  of  his  first  lawsuit, 
followed  by  his  introduction  at  court. 

Even  from  the  first,  young  Caron  had  most  of  the 
qualities  that  make  for  success.  "  He  had  a  wonderful 
talent,"  says  La  Harpe,  "for  flattering  the  great  without 
forfeiting  their  esteem.  ...  In  conversing  with  them 
he  always  contrived  to  convey  the  impression  of  being 
convinced  that  it  was  impossible  to  hold  an  opinion  contrary 
to  his  own  without  having  less  intelligence  than  himself, 
which  you  may  be  sure  he  never  for  a  moment  allowed  it 
to  be  supposed,  above  all,  with  those  who  had  little  ;  and, 
expressing  himself  with  as  much  confidence  as  seduction, 
he  made  himself  at  the  same  time  master  of  their  vanity 
and  mediocrity  by  reassuring  the  one  by  the  other."* 

Pierre  Augustin  was  determined  at  all  costs  to  make 
his  way,  and  neglected  no  detail  that  was  hkely  to  further 
his  ambition.  The  influence  of  clothes,  for  instance,  on 
success  in  life  was  no  secret  to  him,  for  he  early  realized 
that  to  be  well-dressed  not  only  gives  one  self-confidence, 
but  inspires  confidence  in  others  ;  and  this  is  a  foible 
in  human  nature  which  he  astutely  turned  to  account. 
His  tailor  was,  accordingly,  chosen  with  great  care,  and 
Pierre  Augustin  was  the  sort  of  man  who  gets  well  served. 

Moreover,  he  was  one  of  those  people  who  bring  gaiety 
and  sunshine  wherever  they  go.  From  his  first  appearance 
at  Versailles,  says  Gudin,  the  women  remarked  on  his  tall, 
well-balanced  figure,  his  healthy  looks,  his  incomparably 
witty  and  amusing  tongue,  his  masterful  air,  which  seemed 
to  set  him  above  all  those  around  him,  his  delightfully 
daring  eyes,  and  "  that  involuntary  ardour  which  flamed 
in  him  at  the  sight  of  a  good-looking  woman."  f  Those 
who  like  us  possess  a  magnetism  which  draws  us  to  them  ; 
but  those  who  are  instinctively  attracted  to  us  offer  the 
most  intimate,  the  most  alluring,  and  indeed  the  supreme 
flattery  of  all  the  ages. 

•  See  La  Harpe,  Notice  sur  Beaumarchais,  in  his  edition  of  the  Works, 
pp.  28-29. 

t  Gudin  de  la  Brenellerie.     Histoire  de  Beaumarchais,  p.  11. 


CHAPTER  II 

MME.    FRANQUET  AND   THE    FIRST    MARRIAGE   OF   BEAUMAR- 

CHAIS 

A  FEW  weeks  before  Pierre  Augustin  moved  into  his 
new  shop  a  society  woman,  whose  roving  eyes 
had  rested  upon  him  with  approval  at  Versailles,  visited 
him  on  the  pretext  of  bringing  her  watch  to  be  repaired. 
Her  name  was  Madeleine  Catherine  Aubertin,  and  she  was 
the  wife  of  Pierre  Augustin  Franquet,  whose  qualifications 
for  his  post  of  Clerk  Controller  of  the  King's  Household 
do  not  appear  to  have  included  a  very  efficient  control 
over  his  own.  Pierre  Augustin  was  pleased  and  flattered 
by  her  visit ;  nor  was  he  insensible  to  her  charms,  for  she 
was  in  the  full  bloom  of  a  brilliant  autumn — a  phase  of 
womanhood  peculiarly  attractive  to  most  young  men  of 
his  years. 

As  Madame  Franquet  reached  the  counter  she  was 
suddenly  overcome  by  timidity,  and  while  our  watchmaker 
looked  at  her  with  open  admiration  she  told  him,  in  a  low, 
agitated  voice,  the  reason  of  her  coming  to  see  him.  Then, 
taking  out  her  jewelled  watch,  she  passed  it  to  him  with 
lowered  eyes.  Their  hands  touched.  She  blushed,  and 
immediately  trembled  all  over.  Her  emotion  caught 
and  thrilled  him  like  some  delightful  electric  current.* 

In  undertaking  to  repair  her  watch,  he  did  not  feel 
called  upon  to  remedy  the  obvious  disorder  in  the  bosom 
of  its  owner.  On  the  contrary,  he  added  fuel  to  the  con- 
flagration. But  the  man  who  kindles  a  flame  of  this  kind 
may  easily  find  himself  condemned  to  extinguish  it.  At 
first  her  ardour  pleased  him.  Before  long,  however,  he 
realized  that,  in  a  woman  especially,  such  a  temperament 
is  a  misfortune. 

♦  Gudin,  p.  lo. 
6 


Mme.  Franquet  and  the  First  Marriage 

When  the  watch  was  mended,  he  did  not  wait  to  be 
invited  to  dehver  it  personally  at  the  Franquets'  house 
in  the  Rue  des  Bourdonnais.  This  gave  him  an  oppor- 
tunity of  being  introduced  to  Monsieur.  Soon  there  was 
no  more  constant  visitor  and  intimate  friend  of  the 
house  than  Pierre  Augustin  Caron.  No  trouble  was  too 
much  for  him  in  the  service  of  his  new  friends.  Indeed, 
he  made  himself  so  useful  and  obliging  that,  later, 
it  was  unkindly  said  he  had  become  their  lackey.  But 
this  was  evidently  set  down  in  malice.  At  any  rate, 
he  soon  gained  a  complete  ascendancy  in  the  household, 
and  Franquet,  who,  at  forty-nine,  was  an  invalid,  was  soon 
persuaded  by  his  wife  that  he  was  too  old  and  infirm  any 
longer  to  carry  out  his  duties  with  satisfaction  either  to 
the  King  or  himself,  and  that  he  could  not  do  better  than 
retire  in  favour  of  his  dear  friend  Caron,  who,  she  had  no 
doubt,  would  be  willing  to  pay  him  a  substantial  annuity 
for  his  office.  Accordingly,  on  the  5th  November,  1755, 
the  transfer  was  effected,  and  confirmed  by  royal  warrant 
dated  the  9th  of  the  same  month.  Franquet  retired  to 
Vert-le-Grand,  near  Arpajon,  where  he  possessed  a  little 
property.  He  was  apparently  well-pleased  with  the  bar- 
gain ;  so  was  friend  Caron,  lor  in  securing  a  footing  at 
court,  he  had  made  the  first  step  in  the  way  of  his  am- 
bition. His  duty  consisted  in  marching,  with  a  sword 
at  his  side,  before  "  the  King's  meat,"  which  he  had  then 
to  place  upon  the  table. 

This  state  of  mutual  satisfaction,  however,  did  not  last 
long,  for  Madeleine  Catherine,  since  she  had  allowed  her 
fancy  to  wander,  had  become  very  discontented  with  her 
lot  and  we  find  her  admirer,  now  awake  to  his  folly, 
trying  to  teach  her  to  be  a  little  more  patient. 

"  If,"  he  wrote,  "  I  listened  to  the  sentiments  of  com- 
passion with  which  your  sorrows  inspire  me,  I  should  detest 
their  author,  but  when  I  remember  that  he  is  your  husband, 
that  he  belongs  to  you,  I  can  only  mutely  sigh  and  wait 
patiently  till  time  and  the  will  of  God  shall  put  me  in  a 
position  to  give  you  the  happiness  for  which  you  appear 
to  be  destined."*  That  sounds  rather  like  the  sanctimon- 
ious pirate,  yet  it  does  seem  to  prove  his  fundamental 
innocence.     But  he  had  not  the  same  reason  that  she  had 

*  Bachaumont,  v.  17,  p.  120. 
7 


Figaro  :   The  Life  of  Beaumarchais 

to  be  in  a  hurry.  It  was  easy  for  him  to  talk.  He  was 
twenty-three  and  she,  on  her  own  showing,  was  thirty- 
three,  and  was  even  then  perhaps  unduly  economical  of 
the  truth. 

However,  their  troubles  were  soon  over,  for  on  the  3rd 
January,  1756,  Francquet  died  of  apoplexy.  We  can 
but  hope  that  his  timely  exit  spared  him  a  humiliating 
misfortune,  for  Madeleine  Catherine  daily  found  it  more 
difficult  to  moderate  her  feelings.  The  way  now  being  clear, 
her  one  idea  was  to  make  sure  of  her  dear  watchmaker 
with  the  least  possible  delay.  The  customary  year's 
mourning  she  considered  too  long,  so  she  curtailed  it  by 
two  months,  and  on  the  22nd  November  had  the  happiness 
of  being  led  to  the  altar  by  her  lover  at  the  Church  of  Saint 
Nicolas  des  Camps, 

The  Caron  family,  who  perhaps  considered  the  marriage 
rather  precipitate,  were  not  present  at  the  ceremony, 
and  contented  themselves  with  giving  their  assent  in 
writing.  The  alliance  was  still  less  to  the  liking  of  the 
bride's  family,  and  they  also  absented  themselves. 

A  few  weeks  after  the  union,  Pierre  Augustin  first 
adopted  the  name  of  Beaumarchais  from  a  small  property 
belonging  to  his  wife,  situated  in  the  former  province  of 
Brie,  of  which,  it  may  be  noticed  in  passing,  his  father  was 
also  a  native.  He  was  so  pleased  with  the  name  that  he 
persuaded  his  favourite  sister  Julie  to  adopt  it  likewise.* 

Beaumarchais  was  thrice  married,  and  we  have  the 
testimony  of  each  of  his  wives  that  he  was  a  tender  and 
devoted  husband.  Possibly  they  were  easily  satisfied ; 
for  it  is  clear  he  never  acquired  much  control  over  his 
imagination — never  learnt  to  possess  all  womankind  in 
the  arms  of  one  wife.  The  tranquillity  of  his  first  matri- 
monial venture  was,  at  any  rate,  not  unruffled.  The 
outcome  of  infatuation  rather  than  love,  both  husband 
and  wife  may  have  expected  too  much  of  their  marriage. 
They  had  yet  to  learn  that  our  happiness  is  never  quite 
so  complete  as  when  viewed  in  anticipation  or  retrospect. 
Then  there  was  the  usual  obtrusive  mother-in-law,  jealous 
of  her  daughter's  love,  and  keeping  an  over- watchful 
eye  on  her  money.      In  the  marriage  contract  Madeleine 

*  Gudin,  p.  10 ;  and  Heylii  et  de  Marescot,  Notice  sur  B.,  in  their  edition 
of  his  Thedtve,  p.  6,  note. 

8 


Mme.   Franquet  and  the  First  Marriage. 

Catherine  had  settled  her  entire  fortune  on  her  husband 
if  he  survived  her,  but,  chiefly  owing  to  her  mother's  deter- 
mined opposition,  the  document  had  not  been  legally 
registered,  and  was  therefore  invalid.  Beaumarchais  did 
not  press  the  matter,  but  he  may  have  been  secretly  hurt 
by  the  failure  to  complete  the  contract,  feeling  that  the 
omission  showed  some  lack  of  confidence  in  himself.  To 
be  dependent  on  his  wife's  fortune  is  an  invidious  posi- 
tion for  any  man  of  spirit,  and  Madeleine  sometimes 
allowed  him  to  feel  that  she  was  not  unconscious  of  her 
power.  This  led  to  coolness  on  his  part  and  reproaches 
on  hers. 

"  Ah,  my  dearest,"  he  wrote,  "  how  times  have  changed  ! 
Formerly  everything  forbade  the  love  we  felt  for  each  other  ; 
yet  how  ardent  it  then  was,  and  how  much  preferable  to 
our  present  state  !  What  you  term  my  coldness  is  nothing 
but  a  timid  concealing  of  my  feelings,  lest  I  should  give 
a  woman  whose  love  has  changed  into  an  imperious  domina- 
tion too  much  hold  over  me. 

"  My  Julie*  marries  me,  but  she  who  in  that  time  of 
rapture  and  illusion  used  almost  to  faint  with  joy  at  a 
tender  look  is  now  no  more  than  an  ordinary  woman,  who, 
at  the  first  difficulty,  has  come  to  think  that  she  could 
very  well  live  without  the  man  whom  her  heart  once  pre- 
ferred to  all  the  world."! 

Nor  was  this  disillusionment  entirely  on  his  side.  Her 
position  as  the  wife  of  a  man  so  much  run  after  by  women 
must  often  have  been  a  trying  one.  He  was  still  young 
enough,  and  new  enough  to  court  ways,  to  be  pleased  and 
flattered  by  such  attentions,  and,  being  an  expansive 
person  when  at  home,  may  have  recounted  his  successes 
of  this  kind  with  more  zest  than  discretion.  It  is  always 
a  hazardous  experiment  for  a  man  to  praise  one  woman  to 
another,  and  above  all,  when  that  other  is  his  wife. 

Apart  from  an  occasional  breeze,  however,  there  does 
not  appear  to  have  been  any  very  serious  unhappiness, 
and  when  they  got  to  know  each  other's  peculiarities  better 
they  would  probably  have  settled  down  together,  quite 

•Most  lovers  christened  their  mistresses  "Julie,"-  after  Rousseai^'s 
heroine,  Julie  d'Etange. 

t  Bachaumont.  v.  17,  p.  121. 

9 


Figaro  :   The  Life  of  Beau  mar  chais 

comfortably.  But  fate  ruled  otherwise.  Madeleine  was 
suddenly  taken  ill,  and  died  of  typhoid  fever  on  September 
29th,  1757 — ten  months  after  her  marriage. 

The  coincidence  of  the  death  of  Franquet,  an  invalid 
of  fifty,  so  soon  followed  by  that  of  his  widow,  just  entering 
on  middle  age,  and  recently  married  to  a  young  man  of 
twenty-five,  with  whom  she  was  very  much  in  love,  at 
first  aroused  no  comment,  especially  as  the  deceased 
lady  was  known  to  have  had  a  weak  chest.  It  was  not  until 
later,  when  the  extraordinary  financial  and  social  success 
of  Beaumarchais  had  excited  widespread  envy,  that 
abominable  rumours  began  to  circulate  accusing  him  of 
having  poisoned  his  wife  and  her  first  husband.  And 
when  he  had  the  misfortune  to  lose  his  second  wife,  in  the 
midst  of  a  bitter  struggle  for  his  life  against  utterly  un- 
scrupulous enemies,  these  calumnies  were  revived  against 
him  with  increased  virulence.  At  last  he  was  obliged, 
as  we  shall  see,  to  defend  himself  publicly  against  the 
slanders,  calling  as  witnesses  the  four  doctors  who  attended 
his  first  wife,  and  the  five  who  attended  his  second  wife. 
Moreover,  he  was  able  to  establish  the  fact  that,  so  far 
from  enriching  him,  the  death  of  each  had,  for  the  time 
being,  absolutely  ruined  him. 

"  Through  the  failure  to  register  my  marriage  contract," 
he  wrote  in  his  memoir  against  Goezman,  when  stung 
to  the  quick  by  these  atrocious  insinuations,  "  the  death 
of  my  first  wife  left  me  absolutely  penniless  and  over- 
whelmed with  debts,  yet  I  refused  to  follow  up  my  claims 
in  order  to  avoid  pleading  against  her  relatives,  of  whom  I 
had  hitherto  had  no  cause  to  complain." 

Other  documents  quoted  by  Louis  de  Lomenie  prove 
the  delivery  by  him  of  his  wife's  property,  partly  to  the 
relatives  of  her  first  husband  and  partly  to  the  members  of 
her  own  family.  But  unintelligent  people  always  mistake 
magnanimity  for  weakness.  Sixteen  years  later,  when 
Beaumarchais  seemed  to  be  at  the  point  of  succumbing 
to  the  most  treacherous  and  unprincipled  adversaries  that 
a  man  ever  had,  Madeleine's  younger  sister,  with  certain 
other  relatives  of  the  dead  woman,  thought  the  moment 
appropriate  to  bring  forward  a  claim  to  still  further  sums 
of  money  on  account  of  his  late  wife's  property.  After 
a  legal  action  of  several  years'   duration,  judgment  was 


Mme.  Franquet  and  the  First  Marriage 

made  against  them,  and  Beaumarchais  was  awarded  sub- 
stantial damages.  Whereupon,  knowing  their  man,  they 
wrote  him  supphcating  letters,  and  he,  like  the  easy-going, 
open-hearted  fellow  that  he  was,  forgave  them  and  agreed 
to  forget  their  indebtedness  to  him. 

Enough  has  been  said  to  show  that  the  evidence  against 
Beaumarchais  will  not  stand  a  moment's  serious  examina- 
tion. Yet  he  suffered  under  these  imputations  for  years, 
and  we  can  only  marvel  how,  under  such  circumstances, 
he  managed  to  keep  his  gaiety,  his  buoyancy  of  spirits, 
his  brotherliness,  and  his  readiness  to  place  his  time,  his 
talents  and  his  purse  at  the  disposal  of  all  who  sought 
his  help.  There  are  few  who  will  not  agree  with  Voltaire, 
who,  when  the  ugly  rumours  were  first  mentioned  in  his 
company,  said  : 

"  This  Beaumarchais  is  not  a  poisoner  :  he  is  too 
amusing  for  that !  " 


iz 


CHAPTER  III 

THE    DUEL 

THE  death  of  his  wife  had,  as  we  have  seen,  thrown 
Beaumarchais  back  into  the  poverty  from  which 
his  marriage  had  enabled  him  to  emerge.  By  that  de- 
plorable accident  he  lost  everything  he  had  gained,  except 
the  minor  office  which  gave  him  a  footing  at  court.  A 
second  turn  of  the  wheel  was  soon  to  give  him  an  oppor- 
tunity of  more  than  retrieving  his  shattered  fortune. 

It  will  be  remembered  that  he  was  a  fine  musician. 
He  was  a  noted  flautist ;  but  what  especially  charmed 
everybody  who  heard  him  was  his  beautiful  voice,  and  the 
accomplished  art  with  which  he  accompanied  himself  on 
the  harp,  an  instrument  which  was  then  coming  into  fashion. 
Just  as  he  had  invented  an  improved  mechanism  for 
watches,  he  now  devised  and  introduced  an  improved 
pedal  for  harps.  His  reputation  as  a  harpist  spread 
rapidly,  and  soon  got  to  the  ears  of  the  King's  daughters, 
the  Princesses  Adelaide,  Victoire,  Sophie  and  Louise,  all 
industrious,  enthusiastic  and  uninspired  musicians.  He 
was  already  known  to  them  as  the  maker  of  the 
wonderful  little  watches  and  clocks  which  had  been  so 
fashionable  since  their  introduction.  They  expressed  a 
wish  to  hear  him  play.  This  led  to  his  being  invited  to 
give  them  lessons,  and  soon  we  find  him  composing  music 
for  them,  and  organizing  charming  concerts  which  were 
attended  by  the  whole  royal  family,  and  a  strictly  limited 
number  of  ladies  and  gentlemen  of  the  court.* 

Modesty  was  not  one  of  the  ex-watchmaker's  strong 
points,  and  it  must  have  needed  all  his  coolness  and  savoir 
faire  to  succeed  in  the  brilliant  situation  in  which  he  now 
found  himself.     Moreover,  like  Mr.  Salteena  "  he  was  not 

*  See  Gudin,  ^.  18  e(  seq. 
12 


The  Duel 

quite  a  gentleman,  though  you  would  hardly  notice  it.'* 
His  high  spirits  and  the  incontinence  of  his  tongue  were 
also  likely,  sooner  or  later,  to  get  him  into  difficulties. 
Such  a  man  can  rarely  resist  the  impulse  to  raise  a  laugh, 
however  ill-timed  it  may  be,  and  he  seldom  reflects  that 
the  world's  laughter  is  always  purchased  at  the  price  of 
its  secret  contempt  for  the  jester.  Yet,  however  little 
respected  he  may  be,  the  man  whose  wit  arouses  mirth  is 
welcomed  in  society  by  all  except  those  who  fail  to  see  his 
joke.  The  sense  of  humour  in  royal  circles  is  apt  to  be  of 
a  rudimentary  growth,  but  in  spite  of  all  that  has  been 
said  to  the  contrary,  Pierre  Augustin's  mistakes  of  decorum 
cannot  have  been  of  such  a  serious  nature  as  many  would 
have  us  beheve,  for  he  was,  at  any  rate,  diplomatic  enough 
to  talk  over  the  Dauphin,  and  even  won  his  esteem  and 
confidence.  "  Beaumarchais,"  he  observed  on  one  occasion, 
"  is  the  only  man  who  tells  me  the  truth."*  Now  as  every- 
body knows,  the  heir  to  the  throne,  though  devoid  of  in- 
telligence, was  full  of  piety  and  formalism,  so  his  evidence 
in  this  matter  has  considerable  weight. 

Many  of  the  courtiers,  however,  were  very  much 
annoyed  at  the  intruder's  success,  for  no  man  can  either 
deserve  or  achieve  popularity  with  impunity.  It  was 
intolerable  that  a  fellow  who,  a  few  years  ago,  had  come, 
hat  in  hand,  to  sell  them  watches,  should  now  sit  at  his 
ease  and  play  the  wit  in  the  royal  presence  whilst  they, 
of  the  noblest  families  in  the  land,  should  be  left  to  cool 
their  heels  outside.  Nor  was  this  their  only  grievance. 
Some  of  their  womenfolk  had  had  the  bad  taste  to  allow 
it  to  be  seen  that  they  were  by  no  means  indifferent  to 
the  upstart's  blandishments.  Again,  if  the  great  offended 
him,  his  lightning  retort  was  so  cleverly  turned  that  they 
could  never  feel  quite  sure  whether  it  ought  to  be  con- 
sidered as  a  compliment  or  an  impertinence.  If  they  tried 
to  put  him  in  his  place  by  disdainful  words,  the  prompt 
and  comic  insolence  of  his  reply  always  made  them  look 
ridiculous.  Even  when  they  devised  a  carefully-laid  trap 
for  him  it  was  they  themselves  who  invariably  fell  into 
it.     There  was  no  limit  to  their  fury. 

One  day,  in  the  richest  court  dress,  he  left  the  apart- 
ments of  the  princesses,  and  proceeded  with  a  firm  step 

*  See  Gudin,  p.  27. 
13 


Figaro  :   The  Life  of  Beaumarchais 

and  dignified  bearing  through  the  crowded  ante-chamber, 
when  a  courtier,  hoping  to  take  him  by  surprise,  accosted 
him,  and  holding  out  a  beautiful  watch,  said  in  a  loud 
voice  : 

"  Sir,  will  you  be  good  enough,  as  an  expert,  to  examine 
my  watch  :  it  is  out  of  order  ?  " 

"  Sir,"  quietly  answered  Beaumarchais,  "  I  have  become 
very  awkward  since  I  ceased  to  practise  the  art." 
"  Ah  !  I  beg  you  not  to  refuse  me  this  favour." 
"  Very  well;  but  I  really  must  warn  you  that  I  am 
awkward."  Then  taking  the  watch,  he  opened  and  held 
it  on  a  level  with  his  eyes,  pretending  to  examine  the  works, 
and  let  it  fall  to  the  ground. 

"  I  warned  you,  sir,  of  my  extreme  awkwardness," 
and,  with  a  low  bow,  he  coolly  turned  on  his  heel,  leaving 
the  discomfited  champion  of  Court  jealousies  to  pick  up 
the  pieces.* 

On  another  occasion  his  rivals  spread  the  news  that 
Beaumarchais  was  living  on  the  worst  possible  terms  with 
his  father,  and  caused  it  to  be  reported  to  the  princesses, 
who,  believing  it  to  be  true,  withdrew  their  favour. 
Directly  Beaumarchais  heard  of  the  slander,  he  set  out 
for  Paris,  called  on  his  father  and  invited  him  to  accompany 
him  to  Versailles  in  order,  as  he  said,  to  show  him  over 
the  palace.  Whilst  doing  so,  he  took  care  that  Mesdames 
should  several  times  see  them  together.  The  same  evening 
he  presented  himself  to  the  princesses  as  usual,  leaving 
his  father  in  the  ante-chamber  to  await  his  return.  They 
received  him  very  coldly.  Nevertheless,  one  of  them,  out 
of  curiosity,  asked  him  with  whom  they  had  seen  him 
walking  during  the  day. 

"  That  was  my  father,"  he  replied,  to  the  great  surprise 
of  the  ladies.  An  explanation  followed,  and  Beaumar- 
chais immediately  solicited  the  honour  of  presenting  his 
father.  Thus,  in  the  most  natural  way,  the  old  gentleman 
was  called  in  to  rehabilitate  his  son — a  congenial  task 
of  which  he  acquitted  himself  with  great  enthusiasm  and 
address,  t 

"  In  France,"  said  Voltaire,  "  one  must  be  either  an 
anvil  or  a  hammer  :  I  was  born  an  anvil."  The  phrase 
might  have  been  applied  at  this  time  just  as  aptly  to  Beau- 

*  See  Gudin,  pp.  24-25.  t  ^bid.  pp.  22-24. 

14 


Madame  de  Pompadour. 
From  the  painting  by  Drouais. 


[To  face  p.   14. 


t 


The  Duel 

marchais.  In  1760,  however,  almost  exactly  a  year  after 
his  honorary  appointment  as  musical  director  and  gentle- 
man messenger  to  the  princesses,  he  had  the  good  fortune 
to  win  the  gratitude  and  friendship  of  Paris  Duverney, 
the  rather  shady  but  influential  financier  who,  twenty 
years  before,  had  furnished  Voltaire  with  the  means  of 
making  the  happy  transition  from  the   "  anvil "   to  the 

I"  hammer  "  class  of  society. 
This  is  how  it  happened.  Duverney,  now  an  old  man 
and  desirous  of  perpetuating  his  name,  had  nine  years 
before  undertaken,  with  Madame  de  Pompadour's  approval, 
the  foundation  of  the  military  college,  on  the  Champ  de 
Mars,  the  forerunner  of  Saint  Cyr,  for  the  training  of  young 
officers. 

Unfortunately  for  him,  whilst  the  building  was  being 
erected,  the  disasters  of  the  Seven  Years'  War  considerably 
diminished  Madame  de  Pompadour's  influence,  and,  worse 
still,  the  enthusiasm  of  the  King  and  his  ministers  for  a 
project  so  closely  associated  with  her  name  likewise  suffered 
a  change.  They  completely  ignored  the  institution,  and, 
although  the  building  was  almost  completed  and  already 
housed  a  few  students,  it  languished  and  was  threatened 
with  ruin  by  the  King's  neglect. 

For   years    Paris    Duverney    had   haunted    the    court, 
boring  everybody  he  met  with  the  story  of  his  pet  scheme, 
and  vainly  soliciting  the  monarch  to  honour  his  estab- 
lishment with  a  formal  visit.     At  last,  in  his  despair,  he 
'  decided  to  speak  to  Beaumarchais,  whom  he  had  observed 
I  in  constant   attendance  upon  Mesdames.     He  found  the 
I  concert  director  to  be  a  more  patient  listener  than  any  he 
had    yet    encountered    at    Versailles.     Talkative    people 
readily  form  a  high  opinion  of  the  intelligence  of  those  who 
t  are  willing  to  listen  to  them,  and  before  the  interview  was 
ended,  he  had  the  greatest  respect  for  the  young  man's 
energy  and  ability.     His  hope  began  to  revive,   and  he 
congratulated  himself  upon  making  so  promising  an  ally. 
So   did   Beaumarchais.     His   one   thought   was   to   devise 
a  scheme  by  which  he  might  be  the  means  of  gratifying 
the  old  man's  ambition.     He  remembered  what  had  hap- 
pened  to   Voltaire.     Those  people  who   say   they  despise 
money  do  not  know  what  financial  worries  are.     Beau- 
marchais was  never  among  them  ;  but  as  one  of  the  wisest 

15 


Figaro  :    The  Life  of  Beau  mar  chais 

of  the  ancients  said  :    "He  that  hasteth  to  get  rich  shall 
not  be  innocent." 

Without  a  moment's  delay  he  set  to  work.  Fortunately, 
he  had  consistently  declined  all  monetary  reward  for  his 
efforts  in  the  service  of  the  princesses,  and  he  thought  that 
if  he  could  now  induce  them  to  visit  the  college,  they  would 
be  sure  to  tell  the  King  what  they  had  seen,  and  curiosity, 
if  no  more  exalted  motive,  might  lead  him  to  follow  their 
example. 

Accordingly,  when  he  next  saw  the  princesses,  he 
enthusiastically  described  the  wonders  of  Duverney's 
institution,  warmly  praised  his  public  spirit,  and  ended  by 
begging  them  as  the  only  favour  he  had  ever  asked,  that 
they  would  honour  and  encourage  the  labours  of  the  founder 
by  themselves  coming  to  see  over  the  establishment. 
They  graciously  acceded  to  the  request,  and  Beaumarchais 
was  invited  to  accompany  them.  Duverney  received 
the  royal  party  with  lavish  ceremony,  and  the  princesses 
did  not  fail  to  make  clear  to  him  the  benevolent  interest 
which  they  took  in  the  affairs  of  their  escort.  The  man- 
oeuvre of  Beaumarchais  was  completely  successful.  A  few 
days  later  the  King,  under  his  daughters'  inspiration,  so 
far  threw  off  his  indolence  as  to  visit  the  college  in  state. 

Duverne^^'s  gratitude  to  Beaumarchais  was  unbounded. 
From  that  moment  he  set  about  making  his  friend's  for- 
tune. He  began  by  giving  him,  at  ten  per  cent,  interest, 
shares  in  one  of  his  operations,  involving  a  sum  of  60,000 
livres,  and  then  admitted  him  as  a  principal  associate  in 
many  others.* 

"  He  taught  me  the  business  of  finance,"  says  Beau- 
marchais, "  in  which,  as  all  the  world  knows,  he  was  a  con- 
summate master.  Under  his  direction  I  built  up  my 
fortune  ;  on  his  advice  I  embarked  on  numerous  enter- 
prises ;  in  a  few  he  supported  me  with  his  capital  or  his 
credit  :  in  all  with  his  counsels  and  experience  of  the 
world.  ..." 

Before  leaving  this  subject,  we  must  confess  to  feeling 
that,  although  his  connection  with  the  great  financier 
rapidly  increased  his  fortune,  it  had  a  detrimental  effect 
on  his  character  and  the  happiness  of  his  life,  whilst  it 
was  far  from  enhancing  his  reputation  either  in  the  eyes 

*  See  Gudin,  p.  27  et  seq. 
16 


The  Duel 

of  his  contemporaries  or  of  posterity.  In  money  matters 
few  people  think  of  questioning  the  integrity  of  genial, 
open-handed  men  hke  Beaumarchais ;  yet  it  is  persons  of 
his  temperament  who  want  the  most  careful  watching, 
for  it  is  these  who  most  frequently  get  into  financial 
difficulties  and  are  commonly  the  least  scrupulous  as  to 
the  means  they  employ  to  get  out  of  them. 

We  have  seen  the  fragment  of  a  contemporary  and 
unpublished  letter,  which  clearly  indicates  that  this  view 
was  firmly  held  by  at  least  some  of  his  contemporaries. 
"  Beaum  ..."  says  the  writer,  "  is  a  man  full  of  wit  and 
talent,  but  I  would  trust  him  neither  with  my  wife,  nor  my 
daughter,  nor  my  reputation,  and  still  less  with  my  money." 

In  1761,  Pierre  Augustin  took  it  into  his  head  to  buy 
a  brevet  of  nobility.  At  a  cost  of  85,000  livres,  he  pur- 
chased the  title  of  Secretaire  du  Roi,  and  thus  acquired  the 
legal  right  to  bear  the  name  of  Beaumarchais. 

He  obtained  his  brevet  on  the  9th  December,  1761. 
Not  content  with  this  step,  he  made  a  determined  effort 
in  the  following  month  to  buy  the  lucrative  post  of  Grand 
Master  of  Waters  and  Forests,  at  a  cost  of  500,000  livres. 
Duverney,  who  was  becoming  more  and  more  attached  to 
his  young  friend,  lent  him  the  money,  and  his  cause  was 
openly  canvassed  by  Mesdames.  When  the  other  Grand 
Masters  heard  that  they  were  likely  to  have  the  ex-watch- 
maker as  a  colleague,  they  collectively  petitioned  the 
Controller-General  against  the  election  of  such  an  unsuit- 
able candidate,  and  even  threatened  to  resign  in  a  body 
if  this  affront  were  put  upon  them.  Beaumarchais,  there- 
upon, set  Paris  Duverney,  M.  de  la  Chateigneraie,  the 
Queen's  Equerry,  and  other  friends  to  work  with  redoubled 
energy.  He  himself  wrote  and  circulated  an  amusing 
pamphlet,  in  which  he  passed  in  review  the  family  history 
of  the  men  who  displayed  such  hypersensitive  gentility, 
from  that  of  "  M.  d'Arbonnes,  whose  real  name  is  Herve, 
the  son  of  Herve  the  wig-maker,"  to  that  of  "  M.  Telles, 
Grand  Master  of  Chalons,  the  son  of  a  Jew  named  Telles 
Dacosta,  secondhand  jeweller,  who,  after  being  admitted 
without  opposition,  was  later  expelled  because,  it  is  said, 
he  found  it  impossible  to  resist  the  temptation  of  reverting 
to  the  calling  of  his  fathers." 

But  it  is  always  unwise  to  show  contempt  for  others : 


Figaro  :   The  Life  of  Beaumarchais 

even  the  most  amiable  people  hate  those  who  despise  them. 
We  cannot  help  feeling  that  this  was  the  great  mistake 
Beaumarchais,  made  throughout  his  hfe,  and  was  largely 
responsible  for  the  bitterness  of  the  hatred  so  often  dis- 
played against  him.  Sarcastic  people  seldom  reflect  on 
the  cruelty  of  the  wounds  they  so  lightly  inflict,  and  are 
always  astonished  at  the  rancorous  enmity  they  arouse 
in  their  victims. 

By  acting  together,  all  who  had  a  grievance  against 
Beaumarchais,  were  more  than  once  able  to  frustrate  his 
most  cherished  plans.  Such  was  the  case  now.  A  few 
months  later,  however,  he  was  consoled  for  his  disap- 
pointment by  being  accorded  permission  to  purchase  the 
post  of  Lieutenant-General  of  the  King's  Preserves,  a 
less  remunerative  but  much  more  aristocratic  appointment 
than  the  one  he  had  failed  to  obtain.  So,  once  a  week, 
arrayed  in  a  gorgeous  robe,  the  man  who  in  the  near 
future  was  to  hold  up  the  magistracy  to  ridicule  and 
contempt  in  the  person  of  Brid'oison,  solemnly  pronounced 
judgment,  doubtless  with  his  tongue  in  his  cheek,  on 
poachers  and  such  small  fry  of  the  environs  of  Paris. 

This  fresh  advancement  in  fortune  and  position  served 
but  to  irritate  still  more  the  hostihty  of  his  rivals.  Their 
spite  culminated  in  an  unpardonable  insult  offered  hira, 
at   their   instigation,   by   a   young   courtier   whom   Gudin 

refers  to  as  the  Chevalier   de   C .     The   provocation, 

we  are  told,  was  so  outrageous  that,  notwithstanding  the 
severe  laws  against  duelling,  nothing  but  a  resort  to  arms 
could  wipe  out  the  offence.  The  antagonists  instantly 
mounted  their  horses  and  proceeded  to  the  park  at  Meudon, 
where  they  could  fight  out  their  quarrel  in  sohtude.  Early 
in  the  ensuing  combat,  Beaumarchais  eluded  his  opponent's 
guard,  and  drove  his  rapier  up  to  the  hilt  through  his 
body.  As  he  withdrew  his  weapon,  he  saw  his  adversary 
fall  in  a  huddled  heap  to  the  ground  with  blood  gushing 
from  his  chest.  Overcome  with  pity,  he  ran  to  the  aid  of 
the  stricken  man,  and  dressed  the  wound  as  well  as  he 
could  with  his  handkerchief. 

"  Never  mind  about  me,  M,  de  Beaumarchais  ;  look 
to  your  own  safety,"  urged  the  Chevalier. 

"  I  must  first  get  you  help,"  he  rephed,  and  flinging 
himself   on   horseback   he   dashed  off  to   Meudon  village, 

i8 


The  Duel 

sought  out  a  surgeon,  and  brought  him  to  the  wounded 
man.  It  was  only  after  he  had  assured  himself  that 
his  opponent  was  in  good  hands  and  would  receive 
every  possible  care  and  attention,  that  Beaumarchais 
rode  at  full  gallop  back  to  Paris  to  think  out  his  best 
course  of  action. 

The  Chevaher  had  no  sooner  been  transferred  to  his 
home  in  the  capital,  than  Beaumarchais  sent  to  inquire 
after  him.  He  learned,  with  grief,  that  his  late  adversary 
was  in  a  dying  condition,  but  obstinately  refused  to  give 
any  information  as  to  the  encounter.  All  that  he  could 
be  induced  to  say  was  : 

"  I  wantonly  provoked  an  upright  man,  merely  to 
win  the  applause  of  people  for  whom  I  had  no  esteem, 
though  he  had  given  me  no  cause  for  offence.  I  have 
only  got  what  I  deserved." 

Whilst  the  life  of  the  Chevalier  still  hung  in  the  balance, 
Beaumarchais  sought  the  protection  of  the  princesses, 
to  whom  he  related  all  the  circumstances  of  the  unhappy 
affair.     They  immediately  spoke  to  the  King  on  his  behalf. 

"  Take  such  steps,  my  children,"  said  the  monarch, 
"  that  nothing  more  is  said  to  me  on  the  subject."  In 
effect,  he  did  not  want  to  be  bothered. 

After  lingering  on  for  eight  days,  the  Chevalier  died 
without  giving  a  hint  which  could  incriminate  the  man 
who  was  responsible  for  his  death. 

The  fortitude  and  generosity  of  this  unfortunate  gen- 
tleman made  a  deep  and  abiding  impression  on  the  mind 
of  Beaumarchais,  and  to  his  dying  day,  he  spoke  with 
emotion  and  regret  of  this  painful  episode  of  his  youth.* 

*  See  Gudin,  pp.  25-27. 


i9 


CHAPTER  IV 

SOME  EARLY  ADVENTURES  OF  BEAUMARCHAIS 

TEN  days  after  this  duel,  Beaumarchais  attended  a 
ball  at  his  friend  Laumur's  house.  He  noticed 
that  in  one  part  of  the  room  a  game  of  cards  was  pro- 
ceeding. Between  the  dances  he  strolled  towards  the 
tables  and  amused  himself  by  watching  the  game.  Now, 
it  is  the  fate  of  good-natured  people  to  be  sought  after 
and  used  by  everybody,  but  to  be  really  respected  by 
nobody,  and  a  reputation  for  this  weakness  quickly  spreads. 
Beaumarchais  had  not  been  at  the  card  table  many 
minutes,  when  one  of  the  players  rose  and,  drawing  him 
aside,  asked  him  for  the  loan  of  thirty-five  louis.  Beau- 
marchais learned  that  the  stranger  was  a  man  of  quahty, 
named  M.  de  Sabheres,  and,  without  hesitation,  acceded 
to  his  request.  When  three  weeks  had  passed  without 
a  word  from  the  debtor,  Beaumarchais  wrote  to  him, 
and  received  a  reply,  promising  that  the  money  should  be 
returned  on  the  morrow  or  the  day  following.  After 
another  interval  of  three  weeks,  Beaumarchais  wrote  again. 
His  letter  was  ignored.  At  last,  losing  patience,  he  sent 
a  third  letter  : 

"  Since,  sir,"  he  wrote,  "  you  have  failed  to  keep 
your  written  word,  I  can  scarcely  be  surprised  that  you 
should  dispense  with  the  trouble  of  replying  to  my  last 
communication  :  the  one  negligence  is  the  natural  sequel 
to  the  other.  This  omission  on  your  part,  of  course, 
gives  me  no  ground  for  reproach.  You  owe  me  no  civility 
and  no  consideration.  Not  having  the  honour  of  being 
one  of  your  friends,  what  right  have  I  to  expect  either 
from  one  who  fails  in  more  essential  duties  ?  This  letter 
is,  therefore,  written  only  to  remind  you  once  more  of  a 


Some  Early  Adventures  of  Beaumarchais 

debt  which  you  contracted  at  the  house  of  a  mutual  friend, 
without  other  security  than  the  debtor's  honour  and  our 
sense  of  what  was  due  to  the  master  of  the  house  whose 
hospitaUty  we  enjoyed.  Another  consideration,  not  with- 
out weight,  is  that  the  money  you  owe  me  was  not  won 
from  you  on  the  chance  of  a  card  ;  but  I  lent  it  to  you 
out  of  my  pocket,  and  in  doing  so  I  may,  for  all  you  know, 
have  deprived  myself  of  an  advantage  I  might  have 
hoped  for  if,  instead  of  wishing  to  oblige  you,  I  had  played 
myself. 

"Should  this  letter  not  be  sufficiently  fortunate  to 
produce  upon  you  the  effect  that  it  would  have  on  me  if  I 
were  in  your  place,  pray  do  not  take  it  ill  if  I  propose  to 
submit  the  matter  to  a  third  party  who  shall  judge  between 
us. 

"  I  will  wait  until  the  day  after  to-morrow  for  your 
answer. 

"  By  the  moderation  of  my  conduct,  I  am  happy  to 
think  that  you  will  judge  of  the  great  respect  with  which 
I  have  the  honour  of  being,  sir,  etc. 

"  De  Beaumarchais." 

Disagreeable  people  are  always  very  sensitive  to  un- 
pleasantness in  others.  Moreover,  it  is  annoying  to  have 
to  borrow  money  from  a  man  belonging  to  a  class  of  people 
whom  you  have  always  despised,  and  worse  still  when 
the  fellow  takes  upon  himself  to  give  you  a  lesson  in 
manners  whilst  reminding  you  of  the  debt.  The  annoy- 
ance of  M.  de  Sablieres  was  so  great  that,  when  he  at  last 
deigned  to  reply,  it  played  havoc  with  his  spelling  and 
grammar.  The  one  thing  which  clearly  emerges  from 
the  incoherence  of  his  letter  is  his  excessive  displeasure 
with  his  correspondent. 

"  I  care  not  a  snap  of  the  fingers,"  he  concludes  his 
epistle,  ''for  the  third  party  with  whom  you  threaten 
me,  and  still  less  for  your  moderation.  You  shall  have 
your  thirty-five  louis,  I  give  you  my  word  for  it  ;  I  will 
bring  them  myself  ;  but  I  cannot  say  whether  I  shall  be 
fortunate  enough  to  answer  for  my  moderation." 

Under  ordinary  circumstances  Beaumarchais  would 
have  thought  very  Httle   of   such  truculence,  but,  as  we 


Figaro  :   The  Life  of  Beaumarchais 

have  seen,  he  was  particularly  anxious  at  this  time  to 
avoid  fresh  trouble,  so  he  deemed  it  expedient  to  write  to 
M.  de  Sablieres  once  more,  and,  after  disavowing  any 
intention  of  wounding  the  touchy  gentleman's  suscepti- 
bilities, he  proceeds  : 

"  Having  now  explained  my  letter,  I  have  the  honour 
to  advise  you  that  I  shall  be  at  home  all  Saturday  morning 
to  await  the  fulfilment  of  your  third  promise.  You  say 
that  you  do  not  know  whether  you  will  be  sufficiently 
fortunate  as  to  be  able  to  answer  for  your  moderation. 
If  a  man  may  judge  by  your  style,  you  have  none  too 
much  control  over  it  in  writing  ;  but  I  can  assure  you 
that  I  shall  not  aggravate  your  infirmity  by  losing  my 
own  temper  if  I  can  help  it.  If  after  these  assurances 
you  propose  in  person  to  pass  beyond  the  Umits  of  an 
amicable  explanation  and  to  push  things  to  the  bitter  end 
(which,  however,  in  spite  of  your  heat,  I  do  not  wish  to 
suppose)  you  will  find  me,  sir,  as  firm  in  repelhng  insult 
as  in  guarding  against  the  actions  which  give  rise  to  it. 

"  P.S. — I  am  keeping  a  copy  of  this  letter,  as  also  of 
the  first,  so  that  my  good  intentions  may  serve  to  justify 
me  in  case  of  accident  ;  but  I  hope,  notwithstanding,  to 
convince  you  that,  so  far  from  searching  for  trouble, 
nobody  can  possibly  be  more  anxious  than  I  am  to  avoid 
it. 

"  I  cannot  explain  myself  more  explicitly  in  writing. 

"  31  March,  1763." 

Beaumarchais  sent  this  letter  by  Laumur,  who  ex- 
plained to  M.  de  Sablieres  the  precise  meaning  of  the 
postscript.  A  word  to  the  wise  suffices,  and,  although 
M.  de  Sablieres  shone  neither  in  spelling  nor  composition, 
he  was  not  such  a  fool  as  you  might  suppose.  He  decided 
not  to  put  his  moderation  to  the  test  of  a  personal  interview, 
and  adopted  a  less  provocative  method  of  discharging 
his  debt. 

About  this  time,  M.  de  Mesl6,  Marquis  de  Faily,  induced 
Beaumarchais  to  become  his  surety  for  twenty-one  thou- 
sand francs'  worth  of  jewellery  which  he  proposed  to  pur- 
chase   from    a    well-known    demi-mondaine.     Before    the 

22 


Some  Early  Adventures  of  Beaumarchais 

conclusion  of  the  bargain,  the  impecunious  Marquis  ob- 
tained possession  of  the  jewels,  and  straightway  sold  them 
at  a  serious  loss.  When  Beaumarchais  heard  that  not 
only  had  none  of  the  money  reached  the  lady  but  that 
even  the  promissory  note  had  not  been  signed,  he  wrote 
a  sharp  letter  to  the  Marquis  telling  him  frankly  what 
he  thought  of  his  conduct. 

A  few  days  later  the  pair  happened  to  meet  in  the 
green-room  of  the  Comedie  Fran^aise,  and  spoke  to  each 
other  so  passionately  that  Beaumarchais  invited  the 
nobleman  to  finish  the  dispute  outside.  The  Marquis 
objected  that  he  carried  only  a  mourning  sword.  Beau- 
marchais pointed  out  that  he  himself  was  no  better  armed 
with  his  light,  ornamental  weapon,  and  insisted  on  his 
accompanying  him  forthwith  to  the  fountain  in  the  Rue 
d'Enfer.  There,  he  ordered  his  opponent  to  put  himself 
on  guard,  and,  by  the  dim  light  of  a  street  lamp,  imme- 
diately attacked  with  such  impetuosity  that,  after  a  few 
thrusts,  he  scratched  his  adversary's  chest  with  the  point 
of  his  rapier.  The  Marquis  at  once  broke  off  the  duel, 
and  declared  that  if  only  he  had  had  his  proper  sword 
things  would  have  happened  very  differently. 

"  Go  and  get  it,"  retorted  Beaumarchais,  "  and  we  will 
meet  here  again  at  eleven  o'clock."  Thereupon  he  went 
off  to  supper  with  the  lady  whose  diamonds  were  the 
cause  of  all  the  trouble. 

At  her  house  he  met  M.  de  la  Briche,  Ambassadors' 
Usher,  who  lent  him  the  more  substantial  weapon  that 
he  wore. 

Without  waiting  for  the  hour  agreed  upon  for  the 
second  encounter,  he  hurried  to  the  house  of  M.  de  Mesle. 

"  There,"  he  wrote  in  a  letter  describing  the  affair, 
"  the  dear  Marquis,  wrapped  in  his  blankets,  sent  me  word 
that  he  was  suffering  from  colic,  but  would  see  me  on  the 
morrow.  He  did  come,  and  at  once  muttered  excuses. 
I  forced  him  to  come  and  repeat  them  before  our  common 
friend,  Prince  Belosenski,  which  he  did."* 

Beaumarchais  was  at  this  time  on  the  best  possible 
terms  with  several  ladies  of  the  class  to  which  the  heroine 

*  These  letters  are  contained  in  12  volumes  of  Beaumarchais  MSS.,  for 
many  years  in  a  London  bookseller's  catalogue  without  finding  a  purchaser. 
The  collection  was  eventually  acquired  by  the  Director  of  the  Thcdtre 
Fran9ais  for  the  sum  of  ^^"8. 

a3 


Figaro  :    The  Life  of  Beaumarchais 

of  this  episode  belonged.  His  name  is  frequently  men- 
tioned in  the  indiscreet  pages  of  M.  de  Sartine's  "  Journal," 
sometimes  coupled  with  that  of  Mile.  Lacour,  and  more 
often  with  that  of  Mile,  la  Croix  of  the  Opera.  To  the 
first  lady  he  often  paid  light  homage  in  lighter  verse; 
his  relations  with  the  second  were  of  a  more  serious  nature. 
Not  being  overburdened  with  scruples  in  these  matters, 
he  had,  without  compunction,  taken  her  from  his  friend. 
Prince  Belosenski,  leaving  the  disconsolate  Pole  to  ponder 
over  his  simphcity  in  introducing  them  to  each  other. 
There  is  no  denying  the  fact  that  he  was  a  fickle  lover,  and 
the  women  he  met  at  this  period  were  not  remarkable  for 
constancy. 

"  I  divert  myself  from  business,"  he  wrote,  "  with  fine 
literature,  fine  music,  and  sometimes  with  fine  women." 

But  if  his  bearing  in  some  circles  was  not  irreproachable, 
at  home  he  was  at  his  best.  He  was  the  life  and  soul  of 
the  household  :  a  model  son,  and  the  most  devoted  and 
affectionate  of  brothers.  His  sisters  idolized  him.  Never 
was  there  a  more  harmonious  family.  Between  its  mem- 
bers there  was  a  constant  interchange  of  little  attentions 
and  graceful  compliments  ;  and  yet  they  could  be  per- 
fectly frank  with  each  other  without  giving  offence,  for 
they  all  realized  that  to  say  unpalatable  things  to  one's 
intimates  may,  on  occasion,  be  a  duty,  but  must  never  be 
taken  as  a  privilege  of  relationship  ;  on  the  contrary, 
the  more  intimate  the  connection,  the  more  necessary  is 
it  to  exercise  tact  and  courtesy.  Beaumarchais  had 
recently  purchased  a  fine  house,  number  26,  Rue  Conde, 
and  at  once  took  his  father,  a  widower  since  1756,  and 
his  unmarried  sisters  to  live  with  him. 

It  was  about  1765  (the  precise  date  is  uncertain)  that 
his  relations  with  the  princesses  were  severed.  The  cause 
of  the  rupture  has  been  explained  in  at  least  half-a-dozen 
different  ways ;  Beaumarchais  himself  supplying  two 
versions.  The  reliability  of  the  witnesses  (including  him- 
self) is  not  above  suspicion  ;  nevertheless,  we  have  enough 
to  form  a  fairly  accurate  idea  of  what  happened.  Every- 
body agrees  that  his  successes  had  by  this  time  made  rather 
a  coxcomb  of  him,  and  it  may  very  well  be,  as  his  enemies 
declared,  that  he  took  liberties,  or  at  any  rate,  put  himself 

24 


iMme.  Adelaide  de  France. 
From  the  portrait  by  Nattier. 


[To  face  p.  24. 


Some  Early  Adventures  of  Beaumarchais 

too  much  at  his  ease  with  the  princesses.  Again,  most  of 
his  rivals  had  come  under  the  lash  of  his  caustic  tongue,  and 
with  them  he  was  never  at  any  pains  to  conceal  his  arro- 
gance. Some  imprudence  of  word  or  gesture  must  have 
given  his  enemies  an  opportunity  of  bringing  about  his 
dismissal. 

"  He  made  himself  so  much  at  home/'  says  Colle  in  his 
Journal,  "  in  the  apartments  of  Madame  de  France  (Madame 
Adelaide)  that  M.  de  Saint  Florentin  felt  obliged  to  write 
ordering  him  to  leave  Versailles  and  not  to  appear  there 
again.  Having  afterwards  established  himself  in  Paris, 
it  is  said  that  when  asked  the  cause  of  his  retirement,  he 
replied  :  '  It  was  not  surprising  that,  young  as  I  was,  with 
a  pretty  good  figure,  and  well-furnished  with  a  number  of 
little  talents  dear  to  women — it  was  not  surprising,  that 
it  should  have  been  feared  that  all  this  might  turn  Madame 
Adelaide's  head.'  I  am  assured,"  continued  Colle,  "  that 
these  were  his  very  words."  The  story  is  not  out  of 
character,  and  is,  on  the  whole,  the  least  improbable 
account  of  the  episode  that  has  come  down  to  us. 

Beaumarchais  declares  that  it  was  not  until  1768,  a 
month  after  his  second  marriage,  that  he  lost  the  good  will 
of  the  King,  though  he  admits  that  court  circles  were  already 
inclined  to  look  askance  at  him  as  a  daring  thinker  whose 
illuminating  criticisms,  conveyed  in  a  jest,  were  vaguely 
considered  to  be  subversive  of  the  social  order — in  effect, 
much  as  Mr.  Bernard  Shaw  was  regarded  by  many  people 
twenty  years  ago.  On  Good  Friday  of  that  year,  the  old 
Due  de  La  Valhere  (a  favourite  of  Louis  XV.)  was  riding 
with  Beaumarchais  to  Versailles,  when  the  Due  said  : 

"I  am  to  sup  to-night  in  the  private  apartments  with 
the  King,  Mme.  Du  Barry,  and  a  few  of  the  elect.  I  wish 
I  could  find  something  to  say  to  enliven  the  supper,  as  a 
rule  they  are  terribly  dull  !  " 

"  li  the  masters  are  in  a  serious  mood,"  replied  Beau- 
marchais, smiling,  "  tell  them  what  our  Sophie  Arnould 
said  to  the  Comte  de  Lauraguais  the  other  evening  :  '  Dost 
thou  remember,  Sophie,'  said  the  Comte,  '  the  first  days  of 
our  love,  when  I  used  to  steal  each  night  into  thy  father's 
house,  under  all  sorts  of  disguises  ?  ' — 'Ah  !  what  a  good 
time    that    was  !  '   she   cried,   '  how  unhappy  we   were  !  ' 

25 


Figaro  :   The  Life  of  Beaumarchais 

This  dehghtful  mot  might  lead  to  others,  perhaps  not  so 
piquant,  but  calculated  to  bring  gaiety  to  the  supper." 

"  If,  on  the  contrary,"  he  continued,  "  you  find  them 
in  a  merry  mood,  throw  a  little  moral  reflection  across  the 
royal  gaiety,  such  as  this  :  '  Whilst  we  are  laughing  here, 
has  it  ever  occurred  to  you.  Sire,  that  Your  Majesty  owes 
more  livres  of  twenty  sols  than  the  number  of  minutes  that 
have  elapsed  since  the  event  whose  anniversary  we  keep 
to-day.' 

"  Such  a  strange  assertion  will  arrest  everybody's 
attention,  and  will  probably  be  denied.  Each  guest  will 
take  a  pencil  and  endeavour  to  show  you  your  mistake  in 
order  to  laugh  at  your  expense."  Beaumarchais  worked 
out  the  sum,  which  came  to  929,948,048  minutes.  "  The 
King,"  he  added,  "  cannot  be  ignorant  of  the  fact  that  he 
owes  more  than  a  thousand  millions  of  livres,  perhaps 
two." 

The  old  courtier,  having  verified  the  calculation,  and 
hoping  to  attract  attention  and  perhaps  even  to  be  admitted 
into  the  ministry,  broke  in  upon  the  gaiety  of  a  particularly 
boisterous  evening  with  this  proposition.  The  other  guests 
immediately  fell  upon  him  in  a  body,  and  reproached  him 
with  spoiling  the  royal  supper.  They  at  once  set  about 
trying  to  remove  the  painful  impression  which  the  Due's 
words  had  created  in  the  King's  mind. 

"  What  you  say,"  muttered  Louis,  "  reminds  us  of  the 
human  skeleton  which  the  ancient  Egyptians  used  to  serve 
among  the  fruits  and  flowers  of  their  banquets  in  order  to 
moderate  the  noisy  exultation  of  the  guests.  W^as  this 
your  own  reflection,  Due  ?  " 

Startled  by  the  gloomy  effect  of  his  problem,  the  old 
courtier  hastened  to  reply  : 

"  No,  Sire,  it  was  Beaumarchais  who  put  this  foolery 
into  my  head." 

The  monarch  left  the  table  without  speaking. 

Some  one  said  :  "  This  Beaumarchais  is  a  dangerous 
fellow,  with  his  romantic  ideas  on  finance  and  liberty  !  Is 
he  not  an  Economist?  " 

"  No,"  answered  the  Due,  "he  is  the  son  of  a  clock- 
maker." 

"  I  thought  as  much,  on  closely  comparing  the  minutes  !  " 
exclaimed  the  other. 


LOI^lS,XV. 


From  a  dyawing  by  Jones,   after  a  medallion  portrait  at   Versailles. 


[To  face  p.   26. 


Some  Early  Adventures  of  Beaumarchais 

"  Thereupon,"  declared  Beaumarchais,  "  everybody  had 
his  say  against  me,  and  all  believed  it  their  duty  to  become 
my  enemies.  This  is  the  origin  of  the  horrible  things  that 
they  made  me  suffer  under  the  Parlement  Maupeou,  from 
which  my  courage  alone  saved  me.  Such  was  my  reward 
for  making  the  King  reflect  by  means  of  a  device  which  had 
some  success  in  Paris."* 

At  the  foot  of  the  MS.  he  adds  :  "  It  was  from  the  heat 
of  these  empoisoned  hours,  that,  fifteen  years  later,  I  took 
the  mild  revenge  of  making  Figaro  describe  the  functions 
of  a  courtier  :  '  Accept,  take,  ask  !  that  is  the  secret  in 
three  words ' — as  you  may  imagine,  my  pleasantry  was  not 
calculated  to  restore  my  credit  in  the  eyes  of  the  late 
King's  courtiers." 

*  Quoted  by  Gudin,  p.  53  ei  seq. 


27 


CHAPTER  V 

AN   ADVENTURE    IN    SPAIN 

ONE  morning  in  February,  1764,  a  letter  shattered, 
like  a  bomb,  the  tranquillity  of  the  household  in  the 
Rue  Conde.  It  was  addressed  to  old  Caron  by  his  eldest 
daughter  in  Madrid,  and  was  conceived  in  these  terms  : 

"  My  sister  has  just  been  insulted  by  a  man  as  influen- 
tial as  he  is  dangerous.  Twice,  at  the  moment  of  marrying 
her,  he  has  failed  to  keep  his  word,  and  has  abruptly  drawn 
back  without  even  deigning  to  offer  any  excuse  for  his 
conduct.  The  tender  heart  of  my  aggrieved  sister  has 
received  such  a  shock  and  her  nerves  are  so  disordered 
that  we  almost  fear  for  her  life.  For  six  days  she  has  not 
uttered  a  word. 

"  The  dishonour  which  this  event  has  cast  upon  her 
has  plunged  us  into  a  profound  retirement.  I  weep  night 
and  day,  in  lavishing  on  the  poor  girl  such  consolation  as  I 
am  not  in  a  state  to  accept  for  myself. 

"  All  Madrid  knows  that  my  sister  has  nothing  with 
which  to  reproach  herself. 

"  If  my  brother  had  sufficient  credit  to  procure  us  a 
recommendation  from  the  Court  to  the  French  Ambassador, 
His  Excellency,  in  favouring  us  with  his  protection,  would 
arrest  the  evil  which  this  perfidious  man  has  done  us  by  his 
conduct  and  his  threats  ..." 

Old  Caron,  in  tears,  handed  the  letter  to  his  son. 

"  See  what  you  can  do  for  these  unhappy  girls,"  he  said, 
*'  they  are  no  less  your  sisters  than  the  others." 

"  Alas  !  "  exclaimed  Beaumarchais,  in  his  distress  when 
he  learned  of  the  grave  situation  of  his  sister,  "  Alas  !  what 

28 


An  Adventure  in  Spain 

sort  of  a  recommendation  can  I  obtain  for  them  ?  Whom 
shall  I  ask  for  it  ?  Who  knows  if  they  may  not  be  con- 
cealing from  us  something  they  may  have  done  which  has 
brought  this  shame  upon  them." 

Upon  these  words  his  father  passed  to  him  several  letters 
addressed  by  the  ambassador  and  other  influential  people, 
expressing  the  highest  esteem  for  both  sisters.  To  these 
were  added  the  names  and  addresses  of  other  persons  of 
standing  who  had  recently  returned  from  Spain  and  could 
testify  to  their  good  conduct.  Reassured  by  this  inde- 
pendent testimony,  Beaumarchais  instantly  made  up  his 
mind.  Without  a  moment's  delay,  he  dashed  off  to  Ver- 
sailles, and  informed  the  princesses  that  a  painful  and 
urgent  business  demanded  his  presence  in  Madrid  and 
compelled  him  to  withdraw  for  a  time  from  their  service. 

Surprised  at  this  abrupt  departure,  Mesdames  asked 
to  know  the  nature  of  the  misfortune  which  had  befallen 
him.     He  showed  them  his  sister's  letter. 

"  Go  !  "  they  said,  with  some  emotion,  "  but  be 
prudent.  What  you  have  decided  on  does  you  credit. 
If  you  act  wisely  you  shall  not  lack  protection." 

Just  before  he  left  Paris,  his  friend  Duverney,  seeing  a 
chance  of  making  much  money  by  the  provisioning  of 
troops  in  Spain,  by  the  colonization  of  the  Sierra  Morena, 
and  other  projects,  appointed  him  his  secret  agent  in 
these  important  commercial  transactions,  and  to  this 
end,  gave  him  notes  of  hand  to  the  amount  of  200,000 
francs. 

All  arrangements  were  now  speedily  concluded,  and 
Beaumarchais  set  out  post  haste  for  Madrid.  He  was  ac- 
companied by  a  French  merchant,  secretly  engaged  to 
safe-guard  him  by  his  anxious  family. 

Riding  night  and  day,  the  travellers  reached  Madrid  at 
eleven  o'clock  in  the  morning  of  May  i8th,  1764. 

Beaumarchais  found  his  sisters  surrounded  by  their 
friends.  After  the  first  greetings  were  over,  he  asked  for 
an  exact  and  detailed  account  of  everything  that  had 
happened.  The  narrative  convinced  him  that  his  sister 
was  in  no  way  to  blame  for  her  misfortune.  He  rose  from 
his  chair,  and,  taking  her  in  his  arms,  said  : 

"  Now  that  I  know  everything,  my  child,  you  can  be 
easy.     I  am  glad  to  see  that  you  no  longer  love  this  man  : 

29 


Figaro  :    The  Life  of  Beaumarchais 

that  makes  my  way  so  much  the  clearer.     Tell  me  where  I 
can  find  him." 

All  present  advised  him  to  go  first  to  the  ambassador  at 
Aranjuez,  for  their  enemy  had  strong  protectors. 

"  Very  well,  friends  ;  be  good  enough  to  order  a  tra- 
velling carriage  for  me,  and  to-morrow  morning  I  will  go 
to  Court  to  pay  my  respects  to  the  ambassador.  In  the 
meantime,  however,  I  must  make  a  few  necessary  enquiries. 
All  that  you  can  do  to  help  me  is  to  keep  my  arrival  secret 
until  my  return  from  Aranjuez." 

Thereupon,  Beaumarchais  hurriedly  changed  his  clothes, 
and  set  out  for  the  dwelling  of  the  Keeper  of  the  Crown 
Archives,  Joseph  Clavijo,  his  sister's  unsatisfactory  lover. 
He  was  not  at  home,  having  just  gone  to  pay  a  visit  to  a 
lady.  Beaumarchais  hastened  to  the  address  indicated, 
and  found  him  with  other  guests  in  the  drawing  room. 
Without  making  himself  known,  he  drew  his  man  aside, 
and  told  him  he  had  just  arrived  from  France,  and  was 
charged  with  several  commissions  for  him.  When  could 
he  receive  him  ?  Clavijo  invited  him  to  take  chocolate 
with  him  at  9  o'clock  on  the  following  morning.  Beau- 
marchais accepted  the  invitation  for  himself  and  the 
merchant  who  had  accompanied  him. 

On  the  morrow,  the  19th  May,  Beaumarchais  presented 
himself  at  8.30.  It  was  a  splendid  house,  which  belonged, 
Clavijo  informed  him,  to  Don  Antonio  Portugues,  one  of 
the  King's  most  honoured  ministers,  who  allowed  him  to 
live  there  during  his  absence. 

Beaumarchais  opened  the  interview  by  saying  that  he 
had  been  asked  by  a  society  of  men  of  letters  to  establish 
a  literary  correspondence  with  the  most  eminent  savants 
and  literary  men  of  the  Spanish  towns  through  which  he 
happened  to  pass  during  his  visit,  and  he  felt  he  could 
not  do  better  than  address  himself,  in  the  first  instance,  to 
the  brilliant  and  learned  author  of  the  Pensador,  with 
whom  he  now  had  the  honour  of  speaking. 

Whilst  Clavijo  beamed  and  expanded  under  these 
compliments,  Beaumarchais  watched  him  narrowly  to 
discover  the  kind  of  man  with  whom  he  had  to  deal.  In 
replying,  the  Spaniard's  eyes  kindled  with  pleasure,  his 
voice  took  on  quite  an  affectionate  tone,  and  "  he  spoke 
like  an  angel  "  of  a  project  so  well  calculated  to  flatter  his 

30 


An  Adventure  in  Spain 

vanity  and  to  further  his  ambition.  He  was  a  clever 
fellow,  and  as  determined  as  Beaumarchais  himself  to  make 
his  way  in  the  world. 

Not  to  be  outdone  in  courtesy,  he  concluded  his  discourse 
by  putting  his  services  at  the  disposition  of  his  guest  in 
every  possible  way. 

Promptly  taking  him  at  his  word,  Beaumarchais  said 
he  would  make  no  secret  of  the  real  object  of  his  visit,  and, 
as  his  friend  was  aware  of  what  he  was  going  to  say,  asked 
that  he  might  be  present  whilst  he  said  it. 

Clavijo  readily  agreed  to  the  request,  though  he  glanced 
at  the  speaker's  taciturn  companion  with  some  curiosity. 

Without  further  delay  Beaumarchais  began  : 

"  A  certain  French  merchant,  with  a  large  family,  and 
in  modest  circumstances,  had  nevertheless  considerable 
business  relations  with  Spain.  The  head  of  a  rich  Spanish 
commercial  house,  happening  to  be  in  Paris,  nine  or  ten 
years  ago,  proposed  to  the  Frenchman,  who  had  been  his 
friend  and  correspondent  for  many  years,  that  he  should 
take  two  of  his  daughters  with  him  to  Madrid,  and  put 
them  in  charge  of  his  business,  under  his  personal  direc- 
tion, with  a  view  to  their  inheriting  the  establishment 
upon  his  death.  He  was  a  bachelor  of  advanced  age, 
and  had  no  living  relatives. 

"  The  proposal  was  accepted,  and  the  eldest  daughter, 
who  was  already  married,  and  one  of  her  sisters,  proceeded 
to  Madrid  and  were  duly  installed  in  the  Spanish  mer- 
chant's house,  which  now  worked  in  closer  collaboration 
with  the  father's  business  in  Paris. 

"  Two  years  later  the  Spaniard  died,  leaving  his  affairs 
in  an  unexpectedly  embarrassed  condition.  But  by  dint 
of  hard  work  and  much  ability  the  young  Frenchwomen 
succeeded  in  putting  the  business  on  a  sound  footing. 

"  About  this  time  a  young  man  from  the  Canary  Islands 
was  introduced  into  the  house." 

At  these  words  Clavijo  started,  and  his  face  lengthened. 
"  In  spite  of  his  poverty,"  calmly  proceeded  Beau- 
marchais, "  the  ladies,  seeing  in  him  an  ardent  student  of 
French  and  the  sciences,  kindly  helped  him  to  such  pur- 
pose that  he  made  rapid  progress  in  his  studies,  and  he 
confided  to  them  his  ambitions." 

Now,  the  man  who  makes  a  confidante  of  a  woman 

31 


Figaro  :    The  Life  of  Beau  mar chais 

masters  her  more  often  than  she  masters  him.  Clavijo 
understood  women,  and  this  is  precisely  what  happened 
in  his  relations  with  the  younger  sister. 

"  The  Spaniard  proposed  marriage,  and  interviewed 
the  elder  lady  on  the  subject. 

"  '  When  you  are  in  a  position  suitably  to  provide  for 
a  wife/  replied  the  elder  sister,  '  I  shall  not  refuse  my 
consent,  if  my  sister  gives  you  the  preference  over  other 
suitors.'  " 

Clavijo  moved  nervously  in  his  chair. 
"  The  younger,"  continued  Beaumarchais,  "  touched  by 
the  merit  of  the  man  who  sought  her,  rejected  several 
offers  of  marriage  in  his  favour,  preferring  to  wait  until 
the  man  who  loved  her  had  justified  the  high  opinion 
which  his  friends  entertained  of  his  ability.  She  entered 
whole-heartedly  into  his  plans  for  the  future,  and  en- 
couraged him  in  his  first  literary  enterprises.  His  first 
publication  was  a  journal  called  the  Pensador." 

At  these  words  Clavijo  trembled,  and  the  blood  left 
his  cheeks. 

"  The  work  had  a  prodigious  success,"  coldly  pursued 
the  speaker.  "  The  King  himself,  delighted  with  this 
charming  production,  bestowed  marked  favours  upon  its 
author,  and  promised  him  the  first  suitable  post  which 
fCil  vacant. 

"  The  young  man  now  paid  open  court  to  his  mistress, 
and  everybody  understood  the  lovers  awaited  only  the 
promised  appointment  to  be  married. 

"  After  six  months  of  assiduous  attentions  the  man 
received  the  appointment,  and  fled." 

Clavijo  breathed  with  difficulty,  and  vainly  sought  to 
hide  his  confusion. 

"  The  affair  had  caused  too  much  commotion  to  be 
treated  with  indifference.  The  ladies  had  moved  into 
a  larger  house,  capable  of  holding  two  families.  The  banns 
had  been  published.  This  public  insult  revolted  the 
friends  of  both  parties.  The  French  Ambassador  inter- 
fered. On  seeing  that  the  Frenchwomen  commanded 
stronger  protection  than  his  own,  and  fearing  to  ruin  his 
rising  fortunes,  the  man  returned  to  throw  himself  at  the 
feet  of  his  incensed  mistress.  He  employed  the  good 
offices  of  his  friends  to  secure  her  pardon,  and  as  the  anger 

32 


An  Adventure  in  Spain 

of  a  betrayed  woman  is  usually  only  hidden  love,  every- 
thing was  forgiven.  The  preparations  for  the  marriage 
were  resumed,  the  banns  again  published,  and  the  cere- 
mony was  widely  advertised  to  take  place  in  three  days' 
time.  The  reconciliation  had  made  no  less  stir  than 
the  rupture.  After  commending  his  affianced  bride,  in 
tender  words,  to  the  care  of  their  common  friends,  the 
young  man  set  out  for  Saint-Hildephonse  to  ask  his  chief's 
consent  to  get  married." 

Fixing  his  eyes  sternly  on  the  wretched  man  before 
him,  Beaumarchais  continued  in  a  rising  voice  : 

"  He  came  back,  in  effect,  two  days  later  ;  but  instead 
of  leading  his  victim  to  the  altar,  he  sent  word  to  the 
unhappy  girl  that  he  had  changed  his  mind  and  did  not 
intend  to  marry  her.  When  her  friends  went  to  him  to 
demand  an  explanation,  he  defied  them  to  do  their  worst, 
and  said  that,  if  these  helpless  Frenchwomen  in  a  foreign 
country  attempted  to  worry  him,  he  would  ruin  them  both. 

"At  this  news  the  poor  girl  fell  into  convulsions,  and 
became  so  ill  that  fears  were  entertained  for  her  life.  In 
their  despair  the  elder  sister  wrote  to  her  brother  in  France, 
telling  him  of  the  public  insult  which  had  been  put  upon 
them.  This  letter  so  affected  her  brother  that,  instantly 
demanding  leave  of  absence,  he  left  country,  business, 
family,  pleasures,  everything,  to  come  and  avenge  in 
Spain  his  innocent  and  unhappy  sister,  to  unmask  a  traitor 
and  write  his  infamy  in  letters  of  blood  on  his  face.  .  .  . 

"  /  a7n  that  brother  /  .   .  .   You  are  that  traitor  !  " 

Clavijo  almost  collapsed.  He  tried  to  murmur  some 
excuses. 

"  Do  not  interrupt  me,  sir  !  "  commanded  Beau- 
marchais ;  "  you  have  nothing  to  tell  me  and  much  to 
hear.  To  begin  with,  have  the  goodness  to  declare  before 
this  gentleman,  who  has  come  expressly  from  France 
with  me,  whether  by  any  lack  of  affection  or  faithfulness, 
or  faults  of  conduct  or  temper,  my  sister  has  deserved 
the  double  outrage  which  she  has  suffered  at  your  hands." 

'*  No,  sir,  I  fully  recognize  that  your  sister  Dona  Maria 
is  a  young  lady  full  of  wit,  grace  and  virtue." 

"  She  has  given  you  no  cause  for  complaint  so  long  as 
you  have  known  her  ?  " 

"  Never." 

33  3 


Figaro  :    The  Life  of  Beau  mar  chais 

Springing  to  his  feet,  Beaumarchais  said  : 
"  Then  why,  monster,  have  you  had  the  barbarity  to 
drag  her  down,  solely  because  she  gave  you  the  preference 
over  half  a  dozen  better  and  richer  men  than  you  !  " 

"Ah,  sir!  I  was  urged  on  by  others.  There  were 
instigations,  counsels — if  you  only  knew  !  " 

"  That  is  enough  !  " 

Turning  to  his  friend  Beaumarchais  said  :  "  You 
have  heard  my  sister's  vindication,  go  and  publish  it. 
What  I  have  now  to  say  to  this  gentleman  needs  no  wit- 
ness." His  friend  left  the  house.  Between  fear  and 
astonishment  Clavijo  attempted  to  break  off  the  inter- 
view ;  but  Beaumarchias  compelled  him  to  resume  his  seat. 
"  Now  that  we  are  alone,  sir,  this  is  my  proposal, 
and  I  hope  it  will  meet  with  your  approval  : 

"  You  cannot  suppose  that  I  have  come  here  to  pla}^ 
the  part  of  a  brother  in  a  comedy,  who  desires  at  all  costs 
to  get  his  sister  married.  It  happens  to  suit  my  arrange- 
ments as  well  as  your  own  that  you  should  not  marry 
her  ;  but  you  have  wantonly  outraged  a  woman  of  honour 
because  you  thought  her  helpless  and  unprotected  in  a 
foreign  land.  That  is  the  action  of  a  blackguard  and  a 
coward.  You  have  now  to  declare  in  writing,  with  all 
doors  open  and  in  the  presence  of  your  servants,  that 
you  are  a  thoroughly  dishonourable  fellow,  and  have 
deceived,  betrayed  and  insulted  my  sister  without  any 
justification  whatever.  The  declaration  will  be  in  French, 
so  that  the  servants  will  not  understand.  You  will 
then  sign  the  document,  hand  it  to  me,  and  I  shall 
show  it  to  our  ambassador.  I  shall  next  have  the  declara- 
tion printed  and  circulated  at  Court  and  in  every  part  of 
the  town.  In  short,  I  shall  do  everything  in  my  power 
to  make  you  lose  your  place,  and  shall  pursue  you  con- 
stantly and  relentlessly  until  my  sister's  resentment  is 
appeased  and  she  herself  tells  me  to  stop." 

"  I  will  never  sign  such  a  declaration,"  said  Clavijo,  in 
a  voice  shaken  by  emotion. 

"  I  can  well  believe  you,  for  if  I  were  in  your  place  I 
should  perhaps  not  do  so  either.  Whether  you  sign  or 
refuse  to  sign,  however,  is  all  the  same  to  me.  But  unless 
you  do  so,  from  this  moment  I  shall  stay  with  you  ;  I  shall 
never  leave  you  ;    where  you  go  I  will  go,  until  in  sheer 

34 


An  Adventure  in  Spain 

desperation  you  come  to  deliver  yourself  of  my  presence 
behind  the  royal  palace  of  Buenretiro.  If  fortune  favours 
me  I  shall  take  my  sister  in  my  arms,  put  her  in  my 
carriage,  and  take  her  straight  back  to  Paris,  without 
seeing  the  ambassador  or  speaking  of  our  affair  to  any- 
body. If,  on  the  contrary,  fortune  favours  you,  so  much 
the  worse  for  me  :  I  have  made  my  will.  You  will  have 
every  advantage  over  us  ;  you  will  be  able  to  laugh  at 
our  expense.     Order  breakfast  to  be  served." 

And  Beaumarchais  coolly  walked  to  the  bell  and  rang. 
A  servant  entered  with  the  chocolate.  Beaumarchais 
took  his  cup  and  sipped  it,  whilst  Clavijo  paced  the  room 
in  silence.  After  a  long  interval  the  Spaniard  made  up  his 
mind,  and  turning  to  his  visitor,  said  : 

'*  M.  de  Beaumarchais,  listen  to  me.  Nothing  can 
possibly  excuse  my  conduct  towards  your  sister.  Ambition 
was  my  undoing  ;  but  if  I  had  known  that  Dona  Maria 
had  such  a  brother  as  you,  far  from  regarding  her  as  a 
lonely  foreign  girl,  I  should  have  looked  for  the  greatest 
advantage  from  our  union.  What  you  have  said  has  given 
me  the  greatest  respect  for  you,  and  I  implore  you 
to  do  all  you  can  to  repair,  as  far  as  possible,  the  injury 
I  have  done  to  your  sister.  Give  her  back  to  me,  sir, 
and  I  shall  be  the  happiest  of  men  to  receive  from  you 
both  my  wife  and  pardon  for  the  wrong  I  have  done." 

"  It  is  too  late.  My  sister  no  longer  loves  you.  All 
you  have  to  do  now  is  to  sign  the  declaration." 

After  much  ado  and  whining  attempts  to  get  its  terms 
softened,  Clavijo,  either  from  fear  of  the  alternative,  or  in 
the  hope  of  gaining  time,  and  perhaps  winning  back  the 
woman  who  had  loved  him,  swallowed  his  pride,  wrote  and 
signed  in  the  presence  of  Beaumarchais  and  his  own 
servants  the  following  document : 

"  I,  the  undersigned,  Joseph  Clavijo,  Keeper  of  the 
Crown  Archives,  acknowledge  that,  after  having  been 
received  with  all  kindness  into  the  house  of  Mme.  Guilbert, 
I  deceived  Mile.  Caron,  her  sister,  under  promise  of 
marriage  many  times  repeated,  and  that  I  broke  my  troth, 
without  any  excuse  of  fault  or  weakness  on  her  part, 
that,  on  the  contrary,  the  propriety  of  this  young  lady 
(for  whom  I  have  the  greatest  respect)  has  always  been 
above  reproach.     I   acknowledge   that  by  my   indiscreet 

35  3* 


Figaro  :    The  Life  of  Beaumarchais 

conduct,  the  levity  of  my  conversation,  and  the  construc- 
tion which  might  have  been  placed  upon  it,  I  have  openly 
insulted  this  virtuous  young  lady,  of  whom  I  hereby  freely 
and  willingly  ask  pardon,  although  I  acknowledge  myself 
to  be  in  every  way  unworthy  of  obtaining  it.  I  promise 
her  every  kind  of  reparation  which  she  may  desire,  if  the 
present  method  is  not  agreeable  to  her. 

"  Drawn  up  at  Madrid,  b}^  my  own  hand,  in  the  presence 
of  her  brother,  19th  Ma^^,  1764. 

"  Signed  :  Joseph  Clavijo." 

Taking  the  document,  Beaumarchais  warned  the 
Spaniard  that  he  intended  to  make  the  fullest  possible  use 
of  the  declaration,  and  that  henceforth  he  must  be  looked 
upon  as  his  declared  enemy. 

Clavijo  begged  that,  before  publishing  his  humiliation, 
Beaumarchais  would  allow  him  to  make  one  more  attempt 
to  induce  Dona  Maria  to  forgive  him.  The  wity  Spaniard 
already  knew  his  man,  and  approached  him  on  the  weak 
side  of  his  vanity  and  good-nature.  Clavijo  (clearly  a 
born  actor)  implored  him,  with  tears  in  his  voice,  to  act 
as  his  mediator  with  his  sister.  Beaumarchais  refused. 
He  finally  consented,  however,  not  to  dishonour  Clavijo 
publicly  until  after  his  return  from  Aranjuez. 

The  French  Ambassador,  the  Marquis  d'Ossun,  after 
listening  to  his  compatriot's  recital,  and  complimenting 
him  upon  the  ability  with  which  he  had  conducted  the 
affair,  nevertheless,  strongly  advised  him  to  overcome  his 
sister's  repugnance,  and  take  advantage  of  the  Spaniard's 
contrite  mood  to  get  the  young  couple  promptly  married, 
for,  if  he  was  any  judge  of  men,  Clavijo  would  go  far.  And, 
in  any  case,  the  less  publicity  given  to  such  delicate  matters 
the  better  for  all  parties. 

Rather  unsettled  by  M.  d'Ossun' s  advice,  Beaumarchais, 
on  returning  to  Madrid,  found  that  Clavijo  had  already 
made  some  headway  with  his  sisters,  and  concluded  that 
he,  too,  knew  something  about  women — "  soft,  sensitive 
creatures,  whose  hearts  are  easily  moved  in  favour  of  the 
repentant  lover  who  knows  exactly  how  much  boldness 
to  blend  with  his  humility  when  returning  to  sigh  at  their 
feet." 

Directly  he  heard   that   Beaumarchais  had   returned, 
36 


An  Adventure  in  Spain 

Clavijo  set  himself  to  win  his  confidence,  and  such  was 
the  charm  of  his  conversation  and  manners  that  in  a  few 
days  the  pair  became  on  quite  friendly  terms. 

On  May  25th  the  Spaniard,  without  warning,  suddenly 
disappeared  from  the  house  of  M.  Portugues,  and  took 
refuge  with  an  officer  of  his  acquaintance.  Fearing  some 
fresh  change  of  front,  Beaumarchais  immediately  sought 
him  out  in  his  new  lodging.  In  explanation  of  his  action, 
Clavijo  said  that,  by  moving,  he  had  thought  to  give  his 
friends  convincing  proof  of  his  sincerity,  since  his  late 
host  was  strongly  opposed  to  his  marriage.  So  far  from 
blaming  him,  Beaumarchais  told  him  that  the  motive  of  his 
removal  did  credit  to  the  delicacy  of  his  feelings.  His 
heart  warmed  towards  his  late  enemy. 

The  next  day  he  received  from  Clavijo  a  dignified  and 
apparently  quite  sincere  letter,  repeating  his  desire  to 
marry  Mile.  Caron,  "  if  the  past  unhappy  misunder- 
standings have  not  irretrievably  alienated  her  from  me  ;  " 
and  urgently  requesting  him  to  do  his  utmost  to  bring 
about  a  reconciliation.  As  a  last  favour,  he  begged  that 
Beaumarchais  himself  would  go  to  M.  Grimaldi,  his  chief, 
to  secure  his  consent  to  the  marriage. 

On  reading  the  letter  to  his  sisters,  Marie-Louise  burst 
into  tears. 

"  Well,  well,  my  child,  you  love  him  still  and  you  are 
ashamed,  are  you  not  ?  I  can  see  it  for  myself.  Well, 
so  be  it,  since  you  are  no  longer  angry  with  him.  You  are 
none  the  less  a  good,  kind  girl.  This  Clavijo,"  he  added, 
laughing,  "  is  a  monster,  like  most  men  ;  but,  such  as  he 
is,  I  advise  you  to  pardon  him.  For  my  own  sake  I  should 
have  hked  it  better  if  he  had  fought  ;  for  your  sake  I  am 
glad  that  he  did  not." 

His  bantering  words  caused  her  to  smile  through  her 
tears,  and  taking  this  for  a  tacit  consent,  he  hurried  off  to 
fetch  Clavijo,  telling  him  on  the  way  that  he  was  a  hundred 
times  luckier  fellow  than  he  had  any  right  to  be.  The 
Spaniard  agreed  with  him  so  cordially  that  he  ended  by 
charming  everybody,  and  the  lovers  were  reconciled  on 
the  spot.  In  his  excitement,  Clavijo  crossed  to  Mme. 
Guilbert's  desk,  and,  taking  out  pen  and  paper,  for  a  few 
moments  sat  writing.  Then,  in  the  presence  of  the  whole 
company,  including  a  secretary  of  the  Polish  Embassy,  the 

37 


Figaro  :    The  Life  of  Beaumarchais 

Spanish  Consul  at  Bayonne,  and  other  well-known  people^ 
he  gracefully  presented  what  he  had  written,  on  bended 
knee,  to  his  mistress,  with  the  request  that  she  would  add 
her  signature  to  his  own.     The  document  ran  as  follows  : 

"  We,  the  undersigned,  Joseph  Clavijo  and  Marie- 
Louise  Caron,  have  hereby  renewed  our  oft-repeated  vow 
to  belong  only  to  each  other,  and  we  undertake  to  sanctify 
this  solemn  promise  by  the  sacrament  of  marriage  with 
the  least  possible  delay  ;  in  testimony  whereof  we  have 
mutually  drawn  up  and  signed  this  document.  At  Madrid, 
26th  May,  1764. 

"  Signed  :  Marie-Louise  Caron  and 
Joseph  Clavijo." 

The  company  then  gave  themselves  up  to  the  enjoy- 
ments of  a  delightful  evening,  and  had  not  yet  separated 
when,  at  eleven  o'clock,  Beaumarchais  set  out  for  Aranjuez, 
travelling  by  night  in  order  to  avoid  the  heat  of  the  day. 

M.  Grimaldi  readily  assented  to  the  marriage,  remarking 
that  Clavijo  might  have  saved  his  visitor  a  journey,  for 
all  that  was  necessary  in  such  cases  was  to  write  to  the 
minister.  Beaumarchais  at  once  took  upon  himself  the 
responsibility  for  this  irregularity  of  procedure,  on  the 
ground  that  he  wished  to  pay  his  respects  before  begging 
him  to  grant  a  few  audiences  on  other  subjects  of 
importance. 

On  reaching  home,  he  found  a  letter  from  Clavijo 
awaiting  him,  protesting  bitterly  against  an  abominable 
libel,  which  he  alleged  had  just  been  issued,  and  implying 
that  Beaumarchais  was  responsible  for  its  appearance. 
He  enclosed  a  copy  of  the  slander  (in  his  own  handwriting 
throughout),  with  the  request  that  he  would  have  printed 
and  circulated  the  promise  he  had  last  signed,  in  order 
to  refute  these  baseless  slurs  upon  his  honour.  In  the 
meantime,  until  the  public  were  disabused,  he  dared  not 
show  himself,  and  suggested  the  desirability  of  their  not 
meeting  for  a  few  days. 

Beaumarchais  at  once  proceeded  to  his  house,  and  found 
him  in  bed.  After  gently  reproaching  the  invahd  for  so 
readily  believing  ill   of  him,   Beaumarchais,   in  order  to 

38 


An  Adventure  in  Spain 

pacify  him,  promised  that,  as  soon  as  he  was  well,  he  would 
take  him  everywhere  and  treat  him  publicly  as  his  brother. 
They  next  agreed  upon  the  final  arrangements  for  the 
marriage,  and  the  following  day  formal  visits  were  paid 
to  the  grand  vicar  and  the  apostolic  notary.  Beaumarchais 
was  so  pleased  with  the  happy  turn  in  his  sister's  affairs 
that,  upon  his  return  to  the  bedside  of  the  sick  man,  he 
cordially  embraced  him,  and,  knowing  his  straitened  cir- 
cumstances, said  that  he  would  take  it  as  a  brotherly  act 
if  his  friend  would  accept  his  purse,  containing  about 
9,000  livres,  and  a  little  choice  jewellery  and  lace,  so 
that  he  might  be  in  a  position  to  offer  his  bride  a  suitable 
present.  The  Spaniard  accepted  the  jewellery  and  the 
lace,  but  refused  the  money. 

The  next  day  the  purse,  with  a  further  sum  of  money 
just  drawn  from  the  banker,  a  roll  of  valuable  lace,  all 
his  silk  stockings,  and  several  gold-embroidered  vests, 
were  stolen  from  Beaumarchais  by  a  quadroon  valet, 
whom  he  had  taken  into  his  service  at  Bayonne. 

Beaumarchais  at  once  reported  the  theft  to  the  com- 
mandant of  Madrid,  and  was  much  surprised  at  the  extreme 
coolness  of  his  reception. 

Clavijo  received  the  news  of  the  accident  with  admirable 
philosophy,  and  assured  his  friend  that  he  would  never 
see  either  the  valet  or  his  goods  again.  Beaumarchais 
wrote  to  the  ambassador,  informing  him  of  his  loss,  and 
promptly  dismissed  the  incident  from  his  mind. 

During  the  next  few  days  the  relations  between  the 
two  friends  became  closer  than  ever.  But  when  Beaumar- 
chais called  on  June  5th,  he  was  astonished  to  be  informed 
that  the  Spaniard  had  again  abruptly  changed  his  lodging. 

After  an  active  search  over  every  quarter  of  the  town, 
the  new  retreat  of  the  elusive  lover  was  at  length  discovered. 
Again  he  met  the  reproaches  of  Beaumarchais  with  the 
most  plausible  excuses,  but  firmly  rejected  the  suggestion 
that  he  should  come  and  live  with  his  friend  and  his  sisters 
until  after  the  wedding. 

At  last,  in  order  to  allay  the  doubts  which  had  again 
arisen  in  Marie-Louise's  mind,  Beaumarchais  sent  to  the 
apostolic  notary,  on  June  7th,  for  the  authorization  of 
the  ceremony.  What  was  his  amazement  to  be  informed 
by  this  official  that  the  wedding  was  being  opposed  by  a 

39 


Figaro  :    The  Life  of  Beaumarchais 

young  woman  who,  nine  years  before,  had  received  a  promise 
of  marriage  from  the  bridegroom,  and  that  he  had  just 
made  Clavijo  sign  a  declaration  admitting  the  claim. 

Beaumarchais  found  that  the  woman  was  a  chamber- 
maid. Mad  with  rage  and  humiliation,  he  ran  to  Clavijo' s 
apartments. 

"  This  promise  of  marriage  comes  from  you,"  he  ex- 
claimed. "  It  was  concocted  yesterday.  You  are  an  utter 
scoundrel.  I  would  not  trust  my  sister  to  you  for  all  the 
wealth  of  the  Indies  !  This  evening  I  am  going  to  Aranjuez 
to  tell  M.  Grimaldi  of  your  infamy  ;  and,  far  from  opposing 
your  marriage  on  my  sister's  behalf,  I  shall  demand  as 
my  sole  vengeance  that  you  be  compelled  to  marry  your 
chambermaid  forthwith.  I  will  do  everything  I  can  (even 
to  supplying  her  dot)  to  help  her  pursue  you  to  the  altar. 
Then,  you  will  be  caught  in  your  own  trap.  You  will  be 
dishonoured,  and  I  shall  be  avenged." 

"  My  dear  brother,"  said  Clavijo  imperturbably,  "  pray 
suspend  your  resentment  and  your  journey  until  to- 
morrow. I  have  had  nothing  to  do  with  this  unfortunate 
business.  It  is  true  that  I  was  formerly  desperately  in 
love  with  the  pretty  chambermaid  of  Mme.  Portugues, 
and  promised  to  marry  her,  but  since  our  rupture  nothing 
more  has  been  said.  I  speak  to  you  as  one  man  of  the 
world  to  another.  Your  sister's  enemies  are  behind  this 
girl.  Believe  me,  my  friend,  to  buy  her  off  is  only  a  matter 
of  a  few  golden  pistoles.  I  will  take  you  to  a  well-known 
lawyer,  who  will  soon  settle  this  little  affair.  Come  to 
see  me  again  at  eight  o'clock  this  evening." 

With  bitterness  in  his  heart  and  indecision  in  his  mind, 
Beaumarchais  had,  nevertheless,  to  accept  this  explana- 
tion. Was  the  man  a  rascal  ?  Yet,  what  could  be  his 
aim  in  playing  with  him  ?  He  decided  to  suspend  his 
judgment.  Accompanied  by  two  friends,  he  kept  the 
appointment  agreed  upon. 

Clavijo  had  fled. 

Beaumarchais  had  scarcely  reached  home  when  a 
courier  delivered  a  letter  from  the  ambassador  at  Aranjuez, 
advising  him  that  Clavijo,  "  fearing  your  violence,  has 
lodged  a  criminal  complaint  against  you  for  having,  a  few 
days  ago,  at  the  point  of  a  pistol,  compelled  him,  in  his  own 
house,  to  sign  an  engagement  to  marry  your  sister." 

40 


An  Adventure  in  Spain 

The  missive  concluded  by  advising  him,  as  he  valued 
his  safety,  to  abstain  from  all  further  aggressive  words  or 
acts  until  he  had  seen  the  writer.  Beaumarchais  read  the 
note  with  consternation.     He  had  been  tricked. 

At  that  moment  an  officer  of  the  Walloon  guards  entered 
the  room  :  "  Monsieur  de  Beaumarchais,  you  have  not 
a  minute  to  lose.  To-morrow  morning  you  will  be  arrested 
in  your  bed.  The  order  is  issued.  I  have  come  to  warn 
you.  The  man  is  a  rascal.  He  has  turned  everybody 
against  you.     Fly  instantly  !  " 

''  I  would  rather  die,"  stoutly  declared  Beaumarchais  ; 
and  ordering  a  carriage  with  six  mules  to  be  at  the  door 
at  four  o'clock  in  the  morning,  he  bade  farewell  to  his 
family  and  retired  to  his  room.  For  some  time  he  felt 
absolutely  nonplussed  :  his  body  without  energy  and  his 
mind  a  blank.  Gradually  recovering  his  tranquilhty,  how- 
ever, he  sat  down  and  wrote,  "  like  a  man  in  a  fever,"  the 
detailed  account  of  all  he  had  done  since  his  arrival  in 
Spain,  as  summarized  in  the  foregoing  narrative.  He  was 
still  writing  when  interrupted  by  the  arrival  of  his  con- 
veyance.    He  at  once  set  out  for  Aranjuez. 

M.  d'Ossun  granting  him  an  immediate  audience, 
the  ambassador  hstened  to  all  he  had  to  say,  but,  whilst 
commiserating  with  him  upon  his  misfortune,  said  frankly 
that  it  was  hopeless  to  attempt  to  bring  his  enemy  to  justice. 
The  Court  and  the  whole  town  had  been  stirred  up  against 
him,  and  the  best  advice  he  could  give  him  was  to  take  the 
road  to  France  without  a  moment's  delay.  All  the  pleadings 
of  Beaumarchais  would  be  in  vain. 

Such  was  his  agitation  on  leaving  M.  d'Ossun  that 
Beaumarchais,  unable  to  rest,  passed  the  remainder  of 
the  night  in  wandering  through  the  park.  Recovering 
his  spirits  with  the  dawn,  he  determined  not  to  be  beaten. 
Whilst  waiting  to  interview  M.  Grimaldi,  he  happened 
to  encounter  M.  Whal,*  who  had  recently  retired,  after  a 
long  and  honourable  career  in  the  most  important  offices 
of  the  Crown.  Knowing  him  to  be  a  good  friend  of  France, 
Beaumarchais  asked  to  be  allowed  a  few  minutes'  private 
conversation  with  him  on  some  very  urgent  business.  M. 
Whal  courteously  led  him  into  his  room,  and  Beaumarchais 

*  Richard   Wall    (1694-1778),  an    Irish   soldier    and    statesman    in    the 
Spanish  service. 

4r 


Figaro  :    The  Life  of  Beau  mar  chals 

told  him  the  whole  story,  showing  all  the  autograph 
documents  in  support  of  his  case.  At  the  end  of  the 
narrative,  the  old  courtier  rose  from  his  chair,  took  his 
visitor's  hand,  and  said  : 

"  You  may  rest  assured  that  the  King  will  do  you 
justice.  It  was  I  who  recommended  Clavijo  for  the  office 
he  holds,  for  I  saw  that  he  was  a  man  of  great  ability. 
But  ability  without  probity  is  a  misfortune  ;  and  I  wil] 
never  allow  it  to  be  said  that  I  protect  a  person  who  has 
proved  himself  to  be  a  scoundrel.  Since  I  recommended 
him  to  the  King,  I  owe  it  to  myself  to  see  that  the  post 
is  placed  in  worthier  hands." 

M.  Whal,  thereupon,  ordered  his  carriage,  and  drove 
with  Beaumarchais  to  the  palace,  and,  entering  the  royal 
apartments,  told  the  King  the  circumstances  which  com- 
pelled him  to  ask  for  the  dismissal  of  his  protege.  The 
King  expressed  a  wish  to  see  the  young  Frenchman  who  had 
carried  through  this  hazardous  enterprise  with  such  energy 
and  resolution  ;  and,  when  Beaumarchais  was  admitted, 
requested  him  to  read  his  memoir.  He  was  so  much 
impressed  by  the  narrative  that  he  ordered  Clavijo  forthwith 
to  be  deprived  of  his  office,  and  the  next  day  asked  to  have 
a  copy  of  the  journal  and  the  documents  which  had  been 
read  to  him  at  the  audience  on  the  previous  day. 

Clavijo  was  evidently  one  of  those  people  who  spend 
much  of  their  time  in  making  resolutions  which  they  im- 
mediately begin  to  regret — and  their  afterthoughts  are 
commonly  wiser  than  their  actions. 

When  he  heard  of  his  disgrace,  he  took  refuge  in  a 
Capucin  monastery,  whence  he  wrote  a  letter  in  which  he 
expressed  his  sorrow  for  himself  with  great  eloquence, 
and  professed  to  the  last  his  astonishment  at  the  cruel 
and  unmerited  punishment  he  had  received  at  the  hands  of 
a  man  who  he  thought  was  his  friend.  Before  leaving  Spain, 
Beaumarchais,  the  least  resentful  of  men,  made  several 
vain  attempts  to  secure  his  rehabilitation,  for,  he  says, 
"  I  no  longer  hated  him  ;  in  fact,  I  have  never  hated  any- 
body." And  that,  we  believe,  is  the  truth,  though,  to  be 
sure,  magnanimity  comes  easier  to  the  victor  than  to  the 
vanquished. 

42 


CHAPTER  VI 

IN    OLD    MADRID 

IT  was  not  until  February,  1774,  ten  years  after  the 
event,  that  Beaumarchais  made  pubhc  his  account 
of  the  adventure  with  Clavijo,  in  his  fourth  Memoir  against 
Goezman — his  enemies  having  had  the  maladdress  to  give 
him  an  opening  by  issuing  a  lying  version  of  the  affair. 
Allowing  for  his  natural  flamboyancy  and  his  instinctive 
dramatization  of  everything  that  happened  to  him,  the 
authenticity  of  the  narrative  in  all  essential  details  can  no 
longer  be  contested  ;  and  that  he  actually  wrote  it  at  the 
time  of  the  occurrence  is  proved  by  family  papers  which 
have  come  down  to  us.  His  father,  for  instance,  addressed 
him  from  Paris,  on  the  5th  June,  1764  : 

"  How  deeply  I  appreciate,  my  dear  Beaumarchais, 
the  happiness  of  being  the  father  of  a  son  whose  deeds  crown 
so  gloriously  the  end  of  my  career  !  I  saw  at  the  first 
glance  how  much  your  generous  action  must  conduce  to 
the  honour  of  my  dear  Lisette.  Oh,  my  dear  boy,  what  a 
fine  wedding-present  the  declaration  of  Clavijo  is  for  her  ! 
If  one  may  judge  of  the  cause  by  the  effect,  he  must  have 
been  scared  out  of  his  wits.  Assuredly,  I  would  never 
sign  such  a  document  for  all  the  empire  of  Mahmoud 
joined  to  that  of  Trebizond  :  it  covers  you  with  glory 
and  him  with  shame. 

"  I  have  received  by  the  same  post  two  letters  from  my 
charming  Comtesse.*  One  for  me  and  one  lor  Julie — 
beautiful,  touching  letters,  full  of  tender  expressions  for 
me  and  honourable  for  you.  You  have  enchanted  her  ; 
she  hardly  ceases  to  talk  of  her  pleasure  in  knowing  you, 

*  The  Comtesse  de  Fuen-Clara,   an  elderly  and  influential  lady  of  the 
Spanish  Court,  with  whom  he  had  business  relations. 

43 


Figaro  :    The  Life  of  Beaumarchais 

of  her  desire  to  help  you,  and  of  her  joy  at  seeing  how  all 
the  Spaniards  approve  and  praise  your  action  respecting 
Clavijo.  She  could  not  be  more  appreciative  if  you  be- 
longed to  her  own  family.  Pray  do  not  neglect  her. 
Adieu,  my  dear  Beaumarchais,  my  honour,  my  glory, 
my  crown,  the  joy  of  my  heart ;  accept  a  thousand  caresses 
from  the  most  affectionate  of  fathers  and  the  best  of  thy 
friends." 

The  reference  in  this  letter  to  a  wedding  present  is 
in  connection  with  a  second  offer  of  marriage  which  Marie- 
Louise  received  at  this  time  from  a  Frenchman  settled 
in  Madrid,  named  Durand,  who  was  one  of  the  companions 
of  Beaumarchais  in  hunting  down  Clavijo. 

Marie-Louise  Caron  was  thirty-three  at  the  time  of 
the  Clavijo  adventure,  a  fact  which  may  perhaps  help  to 
explain  the  coyness  of  her  lover.  Beaumarchais,  in  his 
narrative,  certainly  implies  that  she  was  a  younger  woman, 
and  may  have  been  impelled  to  this  little  deception  by  the 
fear  that  if  his  readers  knew  the  exact  truth,  they  might 
think  his  sister  was  old  enough  to  know  better.  But  is 
anybody  ever  old  enough  to  know  better  ?  On  the  other 
hand,  she  is  reputed  to  have  been  both  witty  and  good- 
looking.  She  never  married.  On  her  return  to  France 
she  is  believed  to  have  retired  with  her  eldest  sister  to  the 
convent  of  Les  Dames  de  la  Croix  at  Roye,  but  her  later 
history  is  obscure.  A  grandson  of  Beaumarchais  vaguely 
recollected  having  heard  that  she  died  in  America,  but 
there  is  no  definite  information  on  the  point.  Even  the 
3^ear  of  her  death  is  uncertain,  although  it  probably  took 
place  before  1775. 

As  for  Clavijo,  he  lived  to  become  a  distinguished  man 
of  letters,  to  see  himself  represented  on  the  stage  as  the 
vihain  of  a  melodrama  by  Goethe,  to  translate  Buffon 
into  Spanish,  and  to  be  Vice-Director  of  the  Royal  Insti- 
tute of  Natural  History.     He  died  in  1806. 

The  Clavijo  episode  lasted  less  than  a  month,  and  it 
was  no  sooner  satisfactorily  concluded  than  we  find  Beau- 
marchais in  the  thick  of  half  a  dozen  great  commercial 
enterprises,  such  as  the  floating  of  a  compan}/  with  the 
object  of  capturing  the  contracts  for  the  provisionment 
of  all  the  troops  in  Spain,  Majorca,  and  the  settlements  on 

44 


In  Old  Madrid 

the  north  coast  of  Africa,  involving  a  sum  of  not  less  than 
twenty  million  francs  a  year.  At  the  moment  of  con- 
cluding the  bargain  the  scheme  broke  down,  mainly  owing 
to  the  timidity  and  inertia  of  his  Spanish  associates  in 
the  transaction.  Then  he  had  plans  for  securing  on  behalf 
of  a  French  company  a  trading  monopoly  with  Louisiana 
modelled  on  the  India  Company,  for  the  exploitation  of 
the  Sierra  Morena,  for  providing  all  the  Spanish  towns 
with  white  bread,  and  all  the  Spanish  colonies  with  black 
slaves.  He  was  ready  for  anything  and  everything.  His 
energy  was  inexhaustible.  He  spent  his  days  in  planning 
vast  and  complicated  financial  combinations,  and  his 
evenings  in  a  round  of  gaieties  and  frivohties,  without 
ever  allowing  the  pleasures  of  the  night  to  interfere  with 
the  business  of  the  morning.  He  was  welcomed  every- 
where, feted  everywhere.  Yet  he  found  time  to  badger 
the  ministers  in  the  interests  of  his  various  schemes,  to 
frequent  the  fashionable  salons,  to  make  love,  to  study  the 
theatre,  the  literature,  the  manners  and  customs  of  Spain, 
to  play  the  harp  and  sing  at  amateur  concerts,  to  compose 
new  settings  for  old  songs  or  new  words  for  old  settings. 

"  Truly,"  he  writes  to  his  father,  "  with  my  head  upon 
my  pillow,  I  laugh  when  I  think  how  nicely  the  things  of 
this  world  fit  into  each  other  ;  hov/  odd  and  diverse  are  the 
ways  of  fortune  ;  and  how,  above  all,  in  the  whirl  of 
affairs,  the  mind  superior  to  events  rejoices  at  the  clash 
of  interests,  pleasures,  sorrows,  which  dash  and  break 
against  it." 

Beaumarchais  had  not  been  in  Spain  more  than  a 
month  when  he  became  on  the  best  possible  terms  with  a 
lady  whose  beauty  aiid  accomplishments  were  the  delight 
of  the  diplomatic  world  in  Madrid.  His  biographers, 
more  careful  of  her  reputation  than  the  lady  herself,  refer 

to  her  as  the  Marquise  de  la  C ;  but  after  a  discreet 

interval  of  over  a  century  the  veil  of  anonymity  was 
withdrawn.  In  Madrid  she  was  known  as  the  Marquise 
de  la  Croix,  the  wife  of  a  Ueutenant-general  of  artillery 
in  the  service  of  the  Spanish  king,  and  a  near  relative  of 
Monseigneur  de  Jarente,  Bishop  of  Orleans.  She  may 
or  may  not  have  been  a  genuine  marquise,  and  was  possibly 
the  same  person  in  whose  company  M.  de  Sartine  had  so 

45 


Figaro  :   The  Life  of  Beaumarchais 

often  caught  Beaumarchais  in  Paris.  If  the  latter  surmise 
is  correct,  her  presence  in  Madrid  was  doubtless  a  powerful 
incentive  to  Beaumarchais  to  fly  to  the  aid  of  his  sister. 
However  this  may  be,  Madame  de  la  Croix  was  received 
in  the  best  society,  and  her  musical  and  social  talents  were 
very  much  in  request. 

Beaumarchais  was  never  backward  in  making  himself 
at  home,  and  in  August  we  find  him  addressing  his  private 
correspondence  from  her  apartments.  On  the  12th  of 
that  month,  whilst  writing  to  his  father,  the  Marquise 
bent  over  the  back  of  his  chair,  and  insisted  on  his  teUing 
the  old  man  something  about  her.  He  complied  in  these 
terms  : 

"  In  the  room  where  I  am  writing  there  is  a  great  and 
exceedingly  beautiful  lady,  the  very  dear  friend  of  your 
Comtesse  [Madame  de  Fu en-Clara],  who  makes  fun  of 
you  and  me  all  day  long.  She  tells  me,  for  example,  that 
she  thanks  you  for  the  kindness  you  did  her  thirty-three 
years  ago,  when  you  laid  the  foundations  of  the  dehghtful 
acquaintanceship  which  I  opened  with  her  two  months  ago. 
I  assure  her  that  I  will  not  fail  to  tell  you  this,  and  I  do 
so  at  once,  for  what  is  only  a  little  joke  on  her  part  justly 
gives  me  as  much  pleasure  as  if  she  really  thought  it." 

At  this  point  the  fair  Marquise  took  his  pen  to  inter- 
polate : 

"  I  think  it,  I  feel  it,  and  I  swear  it,  sir." 

Beaumarchais,  having  recovered  his  pen,  proceeds  : 

"  Do  not  fail,  then,  through  bashfulness,  to  thank  Her 
Excellency,  in  your  first  letter,  for  her  thanks,  and  still 
more  for  the  kindness  with  which  she  overwhelms  me. 
I  admit  that,  without  the  lure  of  such  a  charming  associa- 
tion, my  Spanish  business  would  be  full  of  bitterness." 

In  his  reply,  dated  the  ist  September,  old  Caron  keeps 
up  the  banter  : 

"  Though  you  have  a  thousand  times  given  me  cause 
to  congratulate  myself  for  taking  so  much  trouble  on  your 
behalf  thirty-three  years  ago,  if  I  had  then  foreseen  the 
happiness  it  would  procure  you  of  being  able  to  amuse  her 
fair  Excellency,  who  does  me  the  honour  of  thanking  me 
for  it,  I  should  have  done  my  best  to  render  you  still  more 
amiable  in  her  beautiful  eyes.     Beg  her  to  allow  me  to 

46 


In  Old  Madrid 

express  my  deepest  respect  for  her,  and  offer  her  my 
services  in  Paris.  I  should  be  overjoyed  at  the  happiness 
of  being  useful  to  her  here.  Since  she  is  the  friend  of  my 
dear  Countess,  I  beg  her  to  be  so  kind  as  to  express  to  her 
my  respectful  attachment."* 

In  the  end,  the  Marquise  caught  the  fancy  of  the  Prince 
of  the  Asturias,  the  heir  to  the  throne.  Beaumarchais, 
with  all  his  good  qualities,  was  never  over  delicate  in  love, 
and  we  find  him,  shortly  before  leaving  Spain  for  ever, 
acting  with  great  spirit  the  part  of  Figaro  in  real  life, 
by  helping  his  Rosine  into  the  arms  of  this  princely 
Almaviva. 

At  this  time,  also,  Beaumarchais  used  his  credit  to 
obtain  the  post  of  Engineer  to  the  King  for  his  brother- 
in-law  Guilbert,  and  maintained  an  uninterrupted  and 
exceedingly  lively  correspondence  with  his  family  in  Paris. 
Moreover,  he  tactfully  but  firmly  collected  his  father's 
overdue  accounts  from  various  members  of  the  Spanish 
Court,  and  throughout  the  whole  period  of  his  absence 
took  an  active  interest  in  the  affairs  of  all  his  sisters. 

Several  of  his  letters  in  this  connection  are  concerned 
with  the  estabhshment  of  his  fifth  sister,  known  to  her 
intimates  as  "  Janette,"  or  "  Tonton,"  and  more  formally 
as  Mile.  Jeanne  Marguerite  de  Boisgarnier,  a  name  she 
had  adopted  when  Pierre  Augustin  became  M.  de  Beau- 
marchais. She  was  an  elegant  and  piquantly  humorous 
little  person,  who  had  for  long  disdainfaliy  kept  at  her 
heels  an  unfortunate  admirer,  named  Octave  Janot  de 
Miron,  a  parliamentary  advocate,  and  friend  of  the  family 
of  several  years'  standing.  He  was  very  much  in  love 
with  her,  or  would  scarcely  have  supported  so  complacently 
the  tendency  of  both  brother  and  sisters  to  make  him  the 
butt  of  their  wit.  At  last,  feeling  that  he  was  being  trifled 
with,  he  wrote  an  exceedingly  cutting  letter  to  Beau- 
marchais in  Madrid.  The  reply  was  not  calculated  to  allay 
his  irritation,  for  Pierre  Augustin  wrote  in  anger,  and  one 
angry  man  is  as  good  as  another.  Mile,  de  Boisgarnier 
further  wounded  the  lover's  vanity  by  taking  her  brother's 
part.     But   Beaumarchais   had  no   sooner   dispatched  his 

*  Lomenie  (L.  de),  Beaumarchais  ei  son  temps,  v.  i.,  p.  30  ei  seq. 
47 


Figaro  :    The  Life  of  Beaumarchais 

letter  than  he  was  ashamed  of  it,  and  immediately  wrote 
to  his  father  pleading  his  friend's  cause  : — 

"  14th   Januar}^    1765. 
"  Sir  and  dearest  Father, 

"  I  have  received  your  last  letter,  dated  the  31st 
December,  and  that  of  Boisgarnier.  Her  reply  has  given 
me  great  pleasure.  I  see  that  she  is  an  odd  creature, 
with  much  wit  and  an  honest  mind  ;  but  if  I  am  in  any 
v/ay  responsible  for  the  coldness  between  her  and  her 
admirer,  and  if  what  passed  between  the  Doctor  and  me 
is  the  cause  of  their  disagreement,  I  say  in  advance  that 
I  have  quite  recovered  from  my  resentment,  and  if  she 
persists  in  hers,  she  must  do  so  on  her  own  account  alone. 
\\Tiatever  opinion  this  friend  has  of  me,  whatever  kind  of 
comparison  he  makes  between  his  own  qualities  and  mine, 
I  shall  not  quarrel  with  him.  The  only  thing  capable  of 
upsetting  me  is  that  he  should  speak  ill  of  my  heart  ; 
he  is  welcome  to  think  as  little  as  he  pleases  of  my  wdt  : 
the  first  will  always  be  at  his  service,  the  second  always 
ready  to  flay  him  when  he  deserves  it.  When  I  tell  him 
the  truth  about  himself,  it  is  always  without  bitterness  : 
I  have  no  wish  to  offend  him.  Has  not  everybody  his 
twist  ? 

"  So  far  from  learning  with  pleasure  that  our  friends 
do  not  get  on  together,  I  am  sorry,  for  Miron  lacks  none  of 
the  solid  qualities  which  make  for  the  happiness  of  a 
good  woman  ;  and  if  my  Boisgarnier  is  less  touched  by 
these  than  repelled  by  the  want  of  a  few  frivolous  accom- 
plishments (which,  moreover,  he  has  in  some  degree), 
I  Vvould  say  that  Boisgarnier  is  a  ninny,  who  has  not  yet 
learnt  by  experience  to  prefer  happiness  to  pleasure. 
To  say  exactly  what  I  think,  he  is  quite  right  to  compare 
himself  favourably  with  me  in  many  things  in  which  I 
feel  I  have  neither  his  virtue  nor  his  constancy  ;  and 
these  things  are  of  great  price  where  a  lifelong  union  is 
concerned. 

"  I,  therefore,  beg  my  Boisgarnier  to  consider  only 
what  is  so  infinitely  praiseworthy  in  our  friend,  and  soon 
it  will  be  all  plain  sailing  again. 

"  For  twenty-four  hours  I  was  furious  with  him  ;  but, 
apart  from  his  profession,   there  is  not   a  man  whom   I 

48 


In  Old  Madrid 

would  prefer  to  be  my  associate  or  my  brother-in-law. 
I  know  what  Boisgarnier  will  say.  Yes,  but  he  plays  the 
hurdy-gurdy  (it  is  true)  ]  his  heels  are  half  an  inch  too 
high  ;  he  narrowly  escapes  being  in  tune  when  he  sings  ; 
he  eats  raw  apples  in  the  evening,  and  takes  equally  raw 
injections  in  the  morning  ;  he  is  frigid  and  didactic  when 
he  chats  ;  he  has  a  certain  clumsiness  in  everything  he 
does  .  .  .  but  a  wig,  waistcoat,  or  goloshes  are  not  reasons 
for  driving  a  man  away  if  he  has  an  excellent  heart  and 
a  cultivated  mind.  The  good  people  of  the  Rue  de  Conde 
ought  to  be  governed  by  other  principles. 

"  Adieu,  Boisgarnier  ;  there  is  a  long  paragraph  for 
you  !  "* 

The  lovers  were  reconciled,  and  in  1767,  having  received 
a  suitable  dowry  from  her  brother,  Mile,  de  Boisgarnier 
was  married  to  M.  de  Miron,  who  was  later  appointed, 
by  the  influence  of  his  brother-in-law,  private  secretary 
to  the  Prince  de  Conti. 

Mme.  de  Miron  became  the  centre  of  a  society  of 
artists  and  men  of  letters.  It  was  in  her  house  that  the 
Abbe  Dehlle  read  much  of  his  unpubhshed  verse  ;  and  it 
was  here,  in  1770,  that  her  brother  met  his  Boswell,  Paul 
Philippe  Gudin  de  la  Brenellerie.  She  was  an  accom- 
pHshed  amateur  actress,  and  played  the  chief  role  in  many 
of  the  farces  which  her  brother  wrote  for  the  entertainment 
of  his  fellow-guests  at  the  seat  of  his  friend,  M.Lenormand 
d'Etioles,  the  accommodating  husband  of  Mme.  de  Pom- 
padour. Mme.  de  Miron  died  in  1773,  leaving  one  daughter, 
who  distinguished  herself  by  her  Uterary  and  musical 
ability,  and  became  known  as  the  "  Muse  of  Orleans," 
when  she  settled  in  that  town  upon  her  marriage. 

During  the  whole  period  of  his  sojourn  in  Spain  there 
was  no  society  in  which  Beaumarchais  received  a  warmer 
welcome  than  that  of  the  diplomatic  corps.  The  British 
Ambassador,  Lord  Rochford,  was  his  particular  friend, 
and  the  pair,  sometimes  accompanied  by  Mme.  de  la  Croix, 
spent  many  a  pleasant  hour  at  the  diplomat's  house, 
singing  to  each  other  the  folk-songs  of  Spain  and  their 
own  compositions.  His  relations  with  the  Russian  Ambas- 
sador, the  Comte  de  Buturlin,  and  his  very  pretty  wife, 

*  See  Lomc'nie,  v.  i.,  pp.  56-58. 

49  4 


Figaro  :    The  Life  of  Beaumarchais 

were  scarcely  less  cordial,  though  the  friendship  was  not 
uninterrupted.     The  trouble  arose  out  of  a  gambling  debt. 

Games  of  chance  never  had  much  attraction  for  Beau- 
marchais, but  one  evening  after  supper  at  their  house  he 
was  persuaded  by  his  hosts,  against  his  will,  to  take  a  hand 
at  cards.  At  the  end  of  the  game  he  had  won  five  hundred 
Hvres  from  the  Count  and  fifteen  hundred  livres  from  his 
wife.  From  that  day  this  particular  game  was  never 
again  played,  the  ambassador  proposing  that  they  should 
play  faro  instead.  Beaumarchais  steadily  refused.  Mean- 
while, not  a  word  was  said  of  the  two  thousand  livres 
owing  to  him.  About  a  week  later  Beaumarchais  was 
present  when  the  Count  won  one  hundred  louis,  still  with- 
out attempting  to  settle  his  debt.  Annoyed  at  this 
negligence,  Beaumarchais  said,  in  the  hearing  of  every- 
body : 

"  If  the  Count  will  lend  me  this  money,  I'll  play  him  at 
faro." 

M.  de  Buturlin,  unable  to  decline  the  request,  passed 
over   the  hundred  louis  he  had  just  won.     Beaumarchais 
held  the  bank,  and  within  an  hour  lost  all  the  borrowed 
money.     He  rose  from  the  table  and  said,  laughing  : 
"  M}^  dear  Count,  we  are  quits  !  " 

"  Yes,  but  you  can  no  longer  say  you  do  not  play  faro, 
and  in  the  future  we  hope  you  will  not  break  up  the 
company." 

"  For  a  few  louis,  with  all  my  heart  ;  but  not  for 
banks  of  one  hundred  louis." 

*'  But  this  one  did  not  cost  you  much." 

"  That  is  as  much  as  could  be  said  if  I  had  to  do  with 
a  bad  debtor." 

Thereupon  the  Countess  broke  off  the  altercation. 
Mme.  de  la  Croix  asked  him  to  give  her  his  arm,  and  they 
left  the  house  together.  Nevertheless,  Beaumarchais  still 
regularly  visited  the  Count,  though  on  a  rather  more  formal 
basis,  and  to  please  his  hosts  played  a  game  or  two  on 
each  occasion.  One  night  he  won  twenty  louis,  and  put 
the  whole  sum  on  two  cards.  Both  won.  Fortune  con- 
tinued to  smile  on  him,  and  at  length  he  broke  the  bank 
of  two  hundred  louis.  The  Chevaher  de  Guzman  at  once 
set  up  another  bank,  and  begging  that  none  would  leave, 
dared  Beaumarchais  to  break  that  also.     Having  won  so 

50 


In  Old  Madrid 

much,  he  felt  obUged  to  take  up  the  challenge.  Everybody 
in  the  room  crowded  round  the  table  to  watch  the  play. 
Putting  aside  fifty  louis  for  the  new  game,  he  returned  the 
rest  of  his  winnings  to  the  bank,  hoping  by  this  generous 
action  to  be  excused  from  playing  again.  His  luck  held, 
and  two  hours  later  he  went  home  with  five  hundred  louis 
in  his  pocket.  Of  this  sum  he  lost  one  hundred  and  fifty 
the  next  day.  Mme.  de  la  Croix  said  that  having  made 
such  an  unprecedented  sacrifice  on  his  winnings,  he  ought 
to  keep  the  rest.  Acting  on  this  suggestion,  he  was  about 
to  leave,  vvhen  the  Count  said  : 

"  Will  you  not  try  your  luck  against  me,  sir  !  " 

"  Sir/'  rephed  Beaumarchais,  *'  I  have  lost  rather 
heavily  this  evening." 

**  But  you  won  a  great  deal  last  night,"  retorted  the 
ambassador,  with  some  warmth. 

"  Monsieur  le  Comte,"  answered  Beaumarchais,  "  you 
know  how  little  I  care  for  money  gained  at  cards  ;  I 
played  unwillingly,  and  won  against  all  good  sense  ;  and 
you  press  me  in  this  way  only  because  you  know  that  I 
play  without  skill  and,  therefore,  at  a  great  disadvantage." 

"Egad!"  cried  the  Count,  "you  can  play  well 
enough  to  win  ;   and  a  good  deal  of  this  money  was  mine." 

"  Very  well,  Monsieur  le  Comte,  how  much  did  you 
lose  ?  " 

"  A  hundred  and  fifty  louis." 

"  Then,  I  will  stand  to  lose  three  hundred  louis,"  said 
Beaumarchais,  "  for,  apart  from  the  hundred  and  fifty 
which  I  have  returned  to  the  bank,  I  will  play  you  for  a 
second  hundred  and  fifty,  at  twenty-five  louis  on  each 
deal." 

Still  Beaumarchais  won  ;  so  when  his  opponent  had 
lost  two  hundred  louis,  Pierre  Augustin  rose,  and  said  : 

"  It  is  madness  for  me  to  go  on  playing  :  I  shah  ruin 
you." 

"  You  do  not  mean  to  say  you  are  going,  sir  ?  Play 
me  for  five  hundred  louis  to  give  me  a  chance  of  recouping 
myself." 

"  No,  Monsieur  le  Comte,  some  other  day.  It  is  four 
o'clock  and  time  for  bed." 

''  You  were  more  pohte  yesterday  with  the  Chevalier 
de  Guzman." 

SI  4* 


Figaro  :   The  Life  of  Beaumarchai8 

"  And  it  cost  him  five  hundred  louis,     I  am  dreadfully 
sleepy.     However,  will  you  play  me  for  the  two  hundred 
louis  on  one  deal  at  trente-et-quarante  ?  " 
"  No,"  he  replied,  "  at  faro." 

"  Gentlemen,"  said  Beaumarchais,  with  a  deep  bow, 
*'  I  wish  you  good-evening." 

Mme.  de  Buturlin,  annoyed  at  her  husband's  losses,  at 
this  point  intervened  to  tell  Beaumarchais  that  his  luck 
was  superior  to  his  manners.  Now,  a  week  before,  at 
Lord  Rochford's,  she  had  taken  Beaumarchais  aside,  and 
begged  him  with  tears  in  her  eyes  to  lend  her  thirty  louis 
to  pay  a  gambling  debt.  Although  he  himself  was  losing 
rather  heavily  at  the  time,  and  had  not  forgotten  the 
affair  of  the  two  thousand  livres,  he  immediately  com- 
plied with  her  request,  and  she  expressed  herself  deeply 
grateful  to  him  for  his  kindness.  But  she  had  not  returned 
the  money. 

On  hearing  her  cutting  remark,  Beaumarchais  looked 
her  steadily  in  the  eyes,  and  said  : 

"  A  week  ago,  madame,  you  comphmented  me  in  a 
contrary  sense." 

The  countess  blushed  in  her   confusion   and,   with   a 
profound  bow,  Beaumarchais  left  the  house. 

He  swore  he  would  never  play  again.  He  continued  to 
frequent  the  Russians'  house.  He  was  coldly  received, 
and  not  a  word  was  said  about  paying  their  debt.  At 
last  Mme.  de  la  Croix  spoke  of  the  matter  to  the  Count's 
doctor,  and  told  him  exactly  what  she  thought  of  the 
ambassador's  conduct,  and  added,  that  unless  he  changed 
his  behaviour  she  would  tell  him  to  his  face  what  she  was 
now  saying,  and  all  Spain  should  hear  of  it.  The  next 
day  the  doctor  brought  two  hundred  louis  to  Beaumarchais 
at  the  house  of  Mme.  de  la  Croix,  with  whom  he  was  dining. 
Greatly  offended,  she  sent  word  that  she  would  see  the 
ambassador  in  the  evening,  and  give  him  the  lesson  he 
deserved ;  that  he  ought  to  have  brought  the  money 
personally  to  Beaumarchais  at  home,  and  to  offer  his 
excuses  for  his  sulkiness  and  slackness  in  paying.  How- 
ever, Beaumarchais  took  the  two  hundred  louis  ;  but  when 
the  doctor  asked  for  a  receipt,  Beaumarchais  laughed  at 
him,  and  sent  a  polite  but  piquant  letter  to  the  Count, 
well  calculated  to  make  him  feel  ashamed.     Two  hours 

52 


In  Old  Madrid 

later  the  Countess  came  to  Mme.  de  la  Croix  to  offer  an 
explanation  and  sent  the  doctor  to  Beaumarchais  to 
reproach  him  for  no  longer  going  to  see  them,  to  which 
he  replied  that,  in  spite  of  his  extreme  regret  to  be  deprived 
of  their  society,  he  did  not  think  it  seemly  to  visit  a  house 
when  he  had  such  just  cause  for  complaint  against  its 
master. 

The  misunderstanding  was  speedily  cleared  up,  and 
after  some  very  flattering  overtures  from  the  ambassador 
and  his  wife,  Beaumarchais  paid  them  a  formal  visit  of 
reconciliation.  He  was  received  with  great  ceremony, 
and,  preceded  by  two  pages,  was  shown  into  the  reception 
room,  where  a  concert  was  in  progress.  The  Countess  was 
at  the  harpsichord.  She  immediately  rose,  and  leading 
the  visitor  to  her  husband,  said  that  such  friends  ought 
not  to  fall  out  on  account  of  a  misunderstanding,  and  she 
hoped  they  would  always  remain  on  good  terms. 

"  Monsieur  de  Beaumarchais,"  she  added,  "  I  am  going 
to  play  the  part  of  Annette  ;  I  hope  you  will  give  us  the 
pleasure  of  taking  the  part  of  Lubin*  ;  the  vSwedish  envoy 
will  be  the  lord  of  the  manor.  Prince  Mezersky  the  bailiff ; 
we  are  already  rehearsing  the  piece."  It  was  impossible 
to  refuse  such  a  courteous  proposal,  and  the  company 
forthwith  proceeded  to  the  harpsichord,  and  Beaumarchais 
was  invited  to  sing  Lubin 's  songs,  the  others  following 
with  as  much  of  their  parts  as  they  could  remember. 
They  all  spent  a  delightful  musical  evening,  and  good 
humour  reigned  once  more. 

"  Let  nobody  ever  speak  to  me  of  play  again,"  says 
Beaumarchais  in  recounting  the  episode  to  his  sister 
Julie  :  "  I  prefer  to  amuse  myself  with  more  Hvely 
pleasures." 

At  dessert,  the  Countess  sent  hrni  a  note  containing 
four  lines  of  verse,  which  made  up  in  cordialitv  for  what 
they  lacked  in  technica  skill.  Her  flattery  pleased  him 
immensely,  and  he  was  not  afraid  to  show  it.  Everybody 
has  his  pet  conceit.  Those  who  are  very  critical  of  vanity 
in  others  rarely  have  any  difficulty  in  flnding  excuses 
for  their  own.  And,  as  Beaumarchais  says,  such  honours 
are  not  to  be  met  with  every  day  of  the  week.  He 
thoroughly    enj  oyed    himself ;       his    friends    were    more 

*  The  lovers  in  Rousseau's  opera  Le  Devin  du  Village. 


Figaro  :   The  Life  of  Beaumarcliais 

charming  than  ever,  and  he  was  richer  by  14,500  hvres. 
He  had  every  reason  to  be  well  satisfied  with  himself.* 

Whilst  in  Madrid,  Beaumarchais  began  a  correspon- 
dence with  Voltaire. 

"  I  have  received  a  letter  from  M.  de  Voltaire,  "  he 
wrote  to  his  father  ;  "he  laughingly  compliments  me 
upon  my  thirty-two  teeth,  my  gay  philosophy,  and  my 
age.  His  letter  is  very  good,  but  my  own  demanded 
just  such  a  letter,  and  I  think  I  might  have  written  it 
myself.  He  wanted  to  know  something  about  this  country  ; 
but  I  shall  reply  in  the  words  which  M.  de  Caro  used  the 
other  day  to  the  Marquise  d'Arissa  at  M.  Grimaldi's,  when 
she  asked  him  what  he  thought  of  Spain  : 

Madame,  I  beg  you  to  wait  until  I  am  out  of  the 
country  before  giving  my  reply  :  I  am  too  sincere  and  too 
pohte  to  give  it  in  the  house  of  a  minister  of  the  King.'  " 

In  spite  of  his  great  social  success,  however,  most, 
though  not  all  of  his  commercial  enterprises  one  after 
another  fell  to  pieces  like  a  house  of  cards.  Those  that  re- 
mained he  left  in  the  charge  of  Durand.  Yet  when  Beau- 
marchais returned  to  France  at  the  end  of  March,  1765, 
his  time  and  energy  had  not  been  wasted.  He  had  gained 
invaluable  experience  in  the  conduct  of  huge  business 
transactions  ;  he  had  extended  his  knowledge  of  men  and 
women  ;  he  had  stored  his  mind  with  the  songs,  the  dances, 
the  colours,  the  manners  and  customs  of  that  land  of 
romance  and  sunshine  ;  and,  above  all,  he  brought  away 
with  him  the  material  out  of  which  grew  Figaro  and 
Suzanne,  Almaviva  and  Rosine,  Cherubin  and  Fanchette, 
Bartholo,  Bazile,  Brid'oison — those  original  and  joyous 
figures  who  were  to  add  so  greatly  to  the  gaiety  of  nations 
and  to  establish  their  creator's  chief  claim  to  immortality. 

*  From  a  long  letter  to  his  sister  Julie,  dated  nth  February,  1765. 


54 


CHAPTER  VII 

THE  STORY  OF  THE  BEAUTIFUL  CREOLE 

BEAUMARCHAIS  was  a  widower  of  twenty-eight  when 
he   made   the   acquaintance   of   PauHne  Le    B , 

an  orphan  of  eighteen.  She  was  a  Creole,  born  in  San 
Domingo,  and  had  be^'^n  brought  to  Paris  as  a  child  to 
be  educated  and  to  live  with  a  widowed  aunt,  who  was 
a  distant  relative  of  the  Caron  family.  In  her  native 
island  she  was  mistress  of  a  mansion  and  estate,  of  an 
estimated  value  of  two  million  francs,  but  the  property 
was  heavily  mortgaged,  much  neglected,  and  mismanaged 
by  those  into  whose  charge  it  had  been  committed,  who 
moreover,  were  gravely  suspected  of  dishonest  administra- 
tion. Pauline's  fortune,  therefore,  consisted  chiefly  in 
great  expectations,  and  she  was  in  reality  quite  poor. 
All  agree,  however,  that  she  was  an  exceedingly  beautiful 
girl,  with  a  charming  voice,  endearing  ways,  and  an 
exceptionally  gifted  musician. 

Soon  after  meeting  the  Caron  family  for  the  first  time, 
Pauline  and  Julie  developed  for  each  other  one  of  those 
passionate  and  romantic  friendships  so  common  among 
young  people  of  the  same  sex.  Under  these  circumstances, 
it  was  almost  inevitable  that  Pauline  should  before  long 
begin  to  take  a  more  than  ordinary  interest  in  her  friend's 
fascinating  brother,  who  cut  such  a  fine  figure  at  court 
and  in  society.  Pauline  found  it  very  delightful  to  sing 
whilst  he  accompanied  her  upon  the  harp,  and  he  found 
it  equally  agreeable  to  see  the  light  of  welcome  in  her 
eyes  whenever  they  met,  and  the  shy,  yet  intimate,  glances 
she  gave  him  when  in  company.  Beaumarchais  indulged 
himself  in  these  pleasures  more  and  more  frequently — 
and   his   adoring   sisters   did   the   rest.     But   in   winning 

5? 


Figaro  :    The  Life  of  Beaumarchais 

Pauline's  heart  he  lost  his  own,  though  not  quite  sufficiently 
to  lose  his  head. 

First  of  all  he  undertook  to  unravel  the  tangled  skein 
of  her  affairs.  He  spoke  to  Mesdames  on  the  matter,  and 
obtained  on  her  behalf  their  recommendation  to  M.  de 
Clugny,  Lord-Lieutenant  of  San  Domingo. 

But  although  his  affection  was  now  deeply  engaged 
and  his  thoughts  turned  complacently  towards  matri 
mony,  the  small,  still  voice  of  arithmetic  became  ever  more 
insistent.  So,  before  committing  himself  to  a  formal 
proposal,  he  entrusted  his  uncle,  Pichon  de  Villeneuve, 
with  ten  thousand  francs,  chartered  a  ship,  filled  her  with 
a  cargo  of  goods  likely  to  be  necessary  for  the  restoration 
of  the  house  and  estate,  and  packed  him  off  to  San  Domingo, 
with  secret  instructions  to  furnish  him  with  an  exact 
account  of  Pauline's  assets  and  habihties,  and  the  possibili- 
ties of  developing  the  property.  These  measures  were 
taken  in  1763. 

It  is  only  fair  to  add  that  before  making  the  acquaint- 
ance of  Pauline,  Beaumarchais  had  himself  acquired 
interests  of  some  importance  in  the  Island,  which  also 
needed  attention,  and  that  about  this  time  he  even  con- 
templated setthng  there.* 

Besides  her  aunt,  the  young  Creole  had  one  other 
relative  in  Paris,  a  rich  uncle,  a  widower  without  children. 

In  his  first  letters  to  Pauline,  we  find  the  harassed 
Beaumarchais,  for  the  second  time  in  his  career,  engaged 
in  the  bewildering  task  of  moderating  the  ardour  of  a  young 
woman  whose  naive  passion  had  been  excited  by  his 
philandering.  His  dear  and  amiable  Pauline  could  not 
doubt  that  a  sincere  and  durable  attachment  was  the 
motive  of  all  he  had  done  for  her,  and  if  he  had  not  yet 
formally  asked  for  her  hand,  it  was  solely  because  all  his 
available  capital  was  being  employed  in  putting  her  affairs 
on  a  satisfactory  basis.  He  had,  however,  spoken  to  her 
uncle  and  flattered  himself  that  his  views  had  met  with 
cordial  approval.  He  had  even  ventured  to  tell  the  old 
gentleman  he  had  every  reason  to  think  that,  when  the 
time  came  to  explain  his  intentions  more  explicitly,  his 
charming  niece  would  not  reject  his  suit.  One  thing  "alone 
restrained  him— the  fear  that  the  money  he  had  sunk  in 

*  Lintilhac  (E.),  Beaumarchais  et  ses  ceuvres,  p.  12. 
56 


The  Story  of  the  Beautiful  Creole 

her  estate  might  be  lost,  and  that  he  would  then  be  unable 
to  offer  her  the  position  in  society  to  which  she  was  entitled. 
He  did  not  know  what  her  expectations  might  be  from 
her  uncle,  and  did  not  think  it  delicate  to  invite  a  discus- 
sion on  the  subject  either  with  her  or  her  uncle.  Such  a 
procedure  was  repugnant  to  his  character  ;  he  would  not 
say  another  word  on  so  distasteful  a  matter. 

Nevertheless,  he  urged  his  dearest  Pauline  to  consider 
that,  in  order  to  be  happy,  it  is  necessary  to  be  without 
anxiety  for  the  future.  How  very  embarrassing  it  would 
be,  for  instance,  if  he  had  no  sooner  taken  her  to  himself, 
than  he  should  have  cause  to  worry  lest  the  capital,  "  of 
not  less  than  eighty  thousand  francs,"  which  he  had  sunk 
in  her  West  Indian  estates,  should,  by  some  misfortune, 
be  lost  !  If,  therefore,  she  was  willing  to  accept  his  homage 
there  were  only  two  courses  open  to  them  :  the  first  was  to 
have  patience  until  the  money  and  exertions  he  had  ex- 
pended on  her  behalf  had  borne  fruit  ;  the  second  was  to 
persuade  her  aunt  to  sound  her  uncle  as  to  his  intentions 
respecting  his  niece.  Yet,  far  from  desiring  that  the  old 
gentleman  should  deprive  himself  in  order  to  increase  her 
well-being,  Beaumarchais  was  always  ready  to  sacrifice 
himself,  if  occasion  should  arise,  to  render  this  worthy 
relative's  old  age  more  agreeable.  But  since,  after  all, 
he  was  her  uncle  and  could  not  take  his  money  with  him, 
when  the  time  came  to  deplore  the  end  of  his  honourable 
career,  it  would  be  more  satisfactory  to  everybody  to 
know  exactly  what  they  had  to  expect. 

"  My  tenderness  for  you,"  he  concluded,  "will  always 
have  precedence  of  everything,  even  of  my  prudence. 
My  fate  is  in  your  hands  :    yours  in  those  of  your  uncle." 

Pauline's  reply  shows  that  she  was  too  much  in  love 
to  appreciate  the  full  significance  of  this  none  too  flatter- 
ing mixture  of  affection  and  ready  reckoning.  She  flew 
to  her  uncle,  and,  finding  him  in  a  propitious  mood,  opened 
her  heart  to  him.  Pleased  and  touched  by  her  confidence, 
the  old  gentleman  was  most  sympathetic  and  said  he 
would  like  to  talk  the  matter  over  with  her  lover,  for 
whom  he  expressed  the  highest  esteem. 

In  her  excitement,  she  immediately  wrote  to  Beau- 
marchais, informing  him  of  the  result  of  her  impulsiveness. 

"  You  tell  me,"  she  wrote,  "  that  your  fate  is  in  my 
57 


Figaro  :    The  Life  of  Beaumarchais 

hands,  and  that  mine  is  in  the  hands  of  my  uncle.  I, 
in,]^my  turn,  make  you  the  advocate  of  my  interests.  If 
you  love  me,  as  I  believe  you  do,  pass  on  to  him  a  little 
of  that  endearing  warmth  :  he  complains  of  being  tied 
down  in  advance.  My  dear,  your  heart  and  mind  must 
work  together  in  this  conversation  :  nothing  can  resist 
you  when  you  have  set  your  mind  on  anything.  Give 
me  this  proof  of  your  tenderness.  I  shall  look  upon  your 
success  as  the  most  convincing  testimony  of  your  eagerness 
for  what  you  so  prettily  call  your  happiness.  Your  foolish 
Pauline  could  not  read  the  dear  words  without  the  maddest 
beating  of  her  heart.  Adieu,  my  dear,  I  hope  your  first 
visit,  on  returning  from  Versailles,  will  be  to  my  uncle. 
Remember  all  the  deference  you  owe  him,  since  he  may 
become  your  own  !  I  must  finish  for  I  feel  I  am  talking 
wildly.     Good-night,  you  rascal  !  " 

In  spite  of  her  uncle's  reluctance  to  agree  to  a  formal 
engagemicnt,  it  was  understood  that  the  marriage  should 
take  place  as  soon  as  the  West  Indian  affairs  were  settled. 

There  are  numerous  gaps  in  the  correspondence,  but 
enough  remains  to  reveal  Pierre  Augustin  in  nearly  every 
phase  of  his  character.  Here  we  have  him,  after  manoeuvr- 
ing Pauline  into  writing  to  him,  treating  her  to  a  little 
personal  philosoply  : 

"  I  thank  you,  my  dearest  Pauline,  for  your  praise 
of  my  first  letter  ;  but,  surely,  it  had  more  success  than 
you  think.  It  touched  your  self-love  ;  the  wish  to  expostu- 
late leads  necessarily  to  writing  ;  hence  a  letter  for  me. 
That  is  just  what  I  wanted  ;  I  am  immensely  gratified  ; 
you  have  written  to  me  first,  for  the  letter  of  which  you 
complain  was  not  really  a  letter.  The  second  was  beside 
the  question,  since  business  demanded  it.  It  follows 
that  you  have  written  to  me  first  ;  my  self-love,  that  is  as 
much  as  to  say  my  love  also,  is  satisfied,  for  the  latter  is 
but  an  extension  of  the  former  to  include  the  beloved. 
We  love  ourselves  in  our  mistress,  in  the  judicious  choice 
which  justifies  our  good  taste  ;  we  love  ourselves  in  the 
tenderness  we  lavish  on  her,  which  turns  her  heart  toward 
us.  There  is  only  one  way  of  regarding  all  the  happiness 
and  misfortune  of  my  life  :  that  is,  as  they  affect  you  and 
me.  Without  this  love  of  ourselves,  no  passion  could  enter 
into  our  souls.     It  is  divinely  ordained,  and  the  love  of  a 

58 


The  Story  of  the  Beautiful  Creole 

charming  fellow  creature  is  so  delightful  only  because  it 
is  an  intimate  emanation  of  self-love.  Forgive  me,  my 
beloved  Pauline,  if  I  give  myself  rather  the  airs  of  a  meta- 
physician ;  I  am  forgetting  myself,  but  what  I  say  cannot 
be  quite  unintelligible  to  such  an  enlightened,  perceptive, 
and  upright  mind.  Do  I  not  tell  you,  I  will  leave  off  ? 
I  renounce  the  playful  manner,  since  you  desire  a  more 
serious  expression  of  my  feelings  in  order  to  indulge  your 
engaging  tenderness.  .  .  . 

"  Listen,  my  beautiful  girl,  the  pen  ought  to  follow  the 
lead  of  the  sentiments  implicitly  :  the  man  who  reflects 
when  he  writes  to  his  beloved  is  an  impostor  who  deceives 
her.  What  matters  it  whether  a  letter  is  well  turned  ; 
its  sentences  well  rounded  :  love  tolerates  no  such  restraints  ; 
it  begins  a  phrase  which  it  thinks  good,  breaks  off  to  begin 
another  which  seems  better,  then  a  third  and  warmer  one, 
leaving  the  others  incomplete.  Disorder  follows  :  through 
having  too  much  to  say,  we  say  it  badly.  But  this  amiable 
confusion  is  sweet  to  the  heart  that  can  read  between  the 
lines.  This  epidemic  malady  triumphs  over  space  and 
time,  and  is  caught  even  by  reading.  We  willingly  share 
the  charm  of  a  disorder  of  which  we  know  ourselves  to  be 
the  first  patient. 

"  My  sweetheart  says  :  *  When  my  beloved  writes  or 
talks  business,  he  has  plenty  of  common  sense,  his  ideas  are 
coherent,  his  conclusions  follow  his  premises,  every  word 
goes  straight  to  the  mark  ;  but  when  he  abandons  his 
pen  to  the  guidance  of  his  poor  heart,  he  begins  quietly 
enough,  then  gets  excited,  wanders  from  his  path,  disdains 
to  retrace  his  steps.  Wholly  given  up  to  his  object,  it 
matters  not  what  he  says,  so  long  as  he  proves  that  he 
loves  me.'  Well,  thou  art  right,  dear  little  woman,  I 
will  take  the  liberty  of  following  the  example  thou  hast 
set  by  using  the  second  person  singular.  I  tell  thee  I 
love  thee.  I  repeat  it.  Dost  thou  believe  it  ?  If  not, 
so  much  the  worse  for  thee.  It  is  the  avowal  of  my 
love  which  inspired  me  with  happiness  :  the  opinion  thou 
hast  of  it  takes  only  second  place,  (i)  The  love  which 
one  feels  (2)  that  which  one  inspires.  These  are  the  true 
gradations  of  the  soul.  What  shall  I  say  to  thee  ?  My 
heart  is  full  of  my  last  thought.  It  will  want  more  than 
half  an  hour  of  silence  and  repose  to  regain  the  calm  which 

59 


Figaro  :   The  Life  of  Beaumarchais 

the  pretty  fire  set  up  in  it  by  writing  to  thee  has  caused 
me  to  lose.  But,  far  from  complaining,  I  would  not  for 
anything  have  it  otherwise. 

"  Good  heavens  !  I  want  to  turn  over,  but  I  have 
no  more  paper.  It  seems  to  me  I  have  not  been  writing 
five  minutes.  .  .  .  Marchand  !*  in  future  I  must  have 
foolscap  paper  for  my  Paris  mail  !  " 

In  a  love  letter  it  is  possible  to  prove  too  much.  "  Every- 
thing's got  a  moral,"  as  the  Duchess  remarked  in  Alice 
in  Wonderland,  "  if  only  you  can  find  it."  Pauline 
would  perhaps  have  had  little  to  fear,  if  she  could  have 
kept  him  at  pen's  length  :  on  paper,  he  was  too  much 
preoccupied  in  disentangling  the  intricacies  of  his  own 
thoughts  to  be  very  dangerous  ;  but,  at  close  quarters, 
her  letters  show  that  he  was  less  inoffensive.  The  truth 
is  that,  apart  from  those  of  his  own  family,  Beaumarchais 
does  not  shine  in  his  relations  with  women.  They  had 
spoilt  him  by  their  adulation,  and  such  men,  at  heart, 
are  apt  to  hold  a  very  poor  opinion  of  those  who  exalt 
them.  He  is  much  more  attractive  when  he  can  forget 
that  he  is  a  ladies'  man,  and  reveals  his  light-hearted, 
unsophisticated  and  better  self.  In  this  mood  he  is  a 
man  of  the  greatest  charm  : 

"  Good  morning.  Aunt  ;  I  embrace  you,  my  sweet 
Pauline ;  your  obedient  servant,  my  charming  Perette. 
Children,  love  one  another  :  that  is  the  teaching  of  the 
apostle,  word  for  word.  If  one  among  you  wishes  her  sister 
evil,  may  it  recoil  on  her  own  head  :  that  is  the  prophet's 
curse.  This  part  of  my  discourse  is  not  intended  for  gentle, 
sensitive  souls  like  you,  I  know,  and  I  do  not  think,  without 
extreme  satisfaction,  that  nature  in  making  you  all  so 
lovable,  has  given  you  that  nice  proportion  of  sensibility, 
equity,  and  moderation  which  enables  3^ou  to  find  your 
happiness  in  living  together,  and  me  to  find  mine  in  the 
enjoyment  of  such  a  delightful  society.  One  will  love  me 
(I  sometimes  tell  myself)  as  her  son,  another  as  her  brother, 
another  as  her  friend,  and  my  Pauline  uniting  all  these 
sentiments  in  her  dear  little  heart  will  inundate  me  under 
a  deluge  of  affection,  to  which  I  shall  respond  according 

*  His  valet. 
60 


The  Story  of  the  Beautiful  Creole 

to  the  capacity  that  the  good  gods  have  seen  fit  to  bestow 
on  your  zealous  servant,  your  sincere  friend,  your  future 
.  .  .  Plague  on  it  !  What  a  solemn  word  I  was  about 
to  pronounce.  It  would  have  exceeded  the  bounds  of  the 
deep  respect  with  which  I  have  the  honour  of  being, 
Mademoiselle,  etc." 

The  prolonged  engagement  was  not  without  its  perils 
for  the  inexperienced  girl.  Her  aunt  was  a  comfortable, 
unobservant,  indulgent  creature,  whose  temperament  quite 
unfitted  her  for  the  part  she  was  called  upon  to  fill.  No 
obstacles  were  placed  in  the  way  of  the  lovers'  interviews  : 
on  the  contrary  ;  and  there  were  moments  when  Pauline 
had  to  remind  her  suitor  of  the  respect  due  to  his  future 
wife — a  duty  of  which  she  acquitted  herself  with  great 
tact  and  spirit.  But  the  repetition  of  such  annoyances 
becomes  enervating,  for  a  girl  in  her  situation  has  her 
most  dangerous  enemy  within  the  gates.  That  she  was 
often  disquieted  by  his  want  of  becoming  humility  is 
undeniable.  How  far  her  defences  held  against  his  en- 
croachments we  shall  soon  be  able  to  judge  : 

"  I  am  replying  to  you,  my  dear,"  she  wrote,  "  from  this 
abode  of  peace,  but  with  my  heart  and  soul  in  an  agitation 
which  I  cannot  control.  What  a  fascinating  letter  is  yours  ; 
how  sweet  and  yet  how  dangerous  !  Thou  would' st 
give  me  the  illusion  of  happiness  without  diminishing  my 
calm  ;  dost  thou  think  it  possible  ? — how  unreasonable 
you  men  are  1  Have  I  more  virtue,  more  strength  than 
thou,  who  knowest  not  how  to  keep  thyself  within  bounds  ? 
At  all  events,  I  have  no  desire  to  seek  opportunities  ;  why 
create  them  ?  I  am  happy  in  thy  love  ;  I  do  not  want 
any  other  good  thing  until  I  am  entitled  to  it.  Why  excite 
me  uselessly  ?  Would'st  thou  wantonly  give  me  pain  ? 
I  do  not  ask  for  any  sacrifices  :  we  must  wait.  I  quite 
understand  thy  reasons  for  this  necessity,  and  I  comply 
with  them.  Give  me  this  proof  of  thy  love  and  care  for 
my  repose,  and  I  shall  cherish  thee  for  it  more  dearly  than 
ever.  Can  I  leave  thy  arms  without  being  deeply  moved, 
without  suffering  bitter  grief  ?  Ought'st  thou  not  to  spare 
me,  since  thou  knowest  we  must  have  patience  ?  .  .  . 
When  I  have  received  such  proofs  of  thy  affection  I  become 

6i 


Figaro  :   The  Life  of  Beaumarchais 

irritable,  my  gentleness  becomes  embittered,  everything 
displeases  me  ;  I  wait  impatiently  ;  I  forget  the  reasons 
for  a  delay  which  gives  me  pain  ;  I  feel  no  longer  the 
handsomeness  of  thy  behaviour  ;  I  feel  under  less  obliga- 
tion to  thee  for  thy  integrity  in  the  conduct  of  my  affairs  ; 
I  become  unjust,  sullen,  ashamed  ;  my  character  deter- 
iorates. Thou  art  no  longer  in  my  eyes  the  god  whom 
I  adore  ;  I  look  upon  thee  only  as  a  despoiler  trying  to 
possess  himself  of  something  to  which  he  has  no  right — 
a  Decan,  the  manager  of  my  estate  who  steals  my  goods." 
"  In  short,  I  will  not  have  a  violent  love  which  torments 
me  in  this  w^ay.  I  do  not  know  how  agreeable  an  im- 
pression this  might  make  upon  me  ;  but  so  far  I  have  seen 
it  only  overshadowed  by  a  thousand  sufferings  ;  if,  in  the 
course  of  time,  I  come  to  see  only  its  bright  side,  I  shall 
surely  owe  it  to  my  present  economy  :  it  is  a  capital  which 
I  invest  that  I  may  enjoy  the  interest.  Let  us  not  touch 
it.  Must  we  not  live  for  more  than  a  day  ?  I  am  told 
that  my  sweetheart  is  a  good  paymaster  ;  that  he  is  exact. 
I  ask  nothing  better.  Adieu,  love  !  Adieu,  my  dearest  ! 
Adieu,  my  all  !  It  will  be  a  day  of  sunshine  to  me,  a 
beautiful  day,  when  thou  returnest.     Adieu  !  "* 

Rightly  speaking,  there  can  be  no  virtue  without  temp- 
tation, or,  at  least  there  is  no  particular  merit  in  virtue 
until  it  has  proved  itself  superior  to  temptation.  None 
need  despair  of  a  girl  who  could,  when  necessary,  defend 
herself  with  so  much  wit,  vigour,  and  good  sense. 

If  lack  of  reticence  in  love-making  was  one  of  Pauline's 
grievances  against  Beaumarchais,  another  was  the  ambig- 
uity of  his  attentions  to  other  women.  He  even  laid  him- 
self open  to  suspicion  of  carrying  on  an  intrigue  under  her 
very  eyes  with  Perette,  the  companion  who  lived  with 
her.  There  was  a  violent  storm  which  broke — as  storms 
of  this  kind  usually  do — over  the  head  of  the  woman,  who 
was  forthwith  turned  out  of  the  house.  Her  rival  once 
out  of  sight,  Pauline  restored  her  erring  lover  to  favour. 
But  however  willing  a  woman  may  be  to  forgive  such  an 
injury  to  her  self-esteem,  she  can  never  forget  it — the 
corrosive  memory  of  it  will  not  fail  to  revive  and  lend 
rancour  and  suspicion  to  the  next  disagreement  between 
the  lovers.     Nor  was  Perette  the  only  woman  to  give  her 

*  See  Revue  des  deux  Mcmdes,  Oct. -Dec,  1852,  p.  487. 
62 


The  Story  of  the  Beautiful  Creole 

cause  for  jealousy.  The  blithe  pen  of  Julie  Caron  on  more 
than  one  occasion  throws  light  on  this  subject  : 

"  Our  house/'  she  writes  to  a  friend,  "  is  a  perfect 
Bedlam  of  lovers — sweethearts  who  live  on  love  and  hope  ; 
but  I  can  laugh  at  it  all  more  easily  than  the  others,  because 
I  am  less  in  love  ;  yet  I  can  conceive  that  to  the  philosophi- 
cal eye  it  is  a  useful  and  interesting  picture.  Beaumarchais 
is  a  regular  scamp  whose  levity  plays  havoc  with  Pauline 
and  worries  her  to  death.  Boisgarnier  and  Miron  hold 
long-winded  sentimental  discussions  and  excite  themselves 
in  an  orderly  way  almost  to  the  point  of  a  beautiful  disorder. 
The  Chevalier  and  I  are  worse  still.  He  is  fond  as  an  angel, 
lively  as  an  archangel,  ardent  as  a  seraph  ;  whilst  I  am  as 
gay  as  a  lark,  as  beautiful  as  Cupid,  and  as  mischievous 
as  a  demon.  Love  does  not  make  me  in  the  least  lackadaisi- 
cal like  the  others,  and,  yet,  such  is  my  folly,  I  cannot  help 
tasting — that's  the  devil  of  it  !  " 

The  Chevalier  de  S ,  referred  to  by  Julie,  was  born 

in  San  Domingo,  and  held  an  appointment  under  the 
Crown.  Beaumarchais  had  recently  made  his  acquaintance 
and  introduced  him  into  his  family  circle,  perhaps  with  an 
eye  to  Julie's  future.  At  any  rate,  he  was  pleased  to  find 
his  new  friend,  before  long,  paying  assiduous  court  to  his 
favourite  sister. 

Such  was  the  situation  when  Beaumarchais  was  called 
to  Madrid.  During  his  absence,  Pauline  wrote  him  most 
affectionate  letters,  in  which  she  sometimes  upbraided 
him  as  a  negligent  correspondent. 

"  Oh,  when  art  thou  coming  back  !  If  thou  didst  but 
know  how  hateful  this  wretched  separation  is  to  me  !  " 

From  time  to  time,  Julie  also  took  her  "  Pierrot  "  to 
task  for  his  inattention  to  Pauline. 

"  For  God's  sake  say  something  to  the  child  !  " — she 
quaintly  admonishes  him. 

By  the  time  Beaumarchais  returned  to  Paris,  he  had 
received  very  bad  news  from  the  West  Indies.  His  worst 
fears  were  realized.  His  uncle  Pichon  just  had  time  to  take 
stock  of  the  property,  and  report  that  Pauline's  house  and 
estate  had  been  allowed  to  fall  into  almost  irreparable 
ruin,  so  that  the  liabiHties  exceeded  the  assets,  when  he 
died.     It  looked  as  though  Beaumarchais  would  lose  all 

63 


Figaro  :   The  Life  of  Beaumarchais 

his  money.  On  making  further  inquiries,  however,  he  was 
assured  that  by  allowing  the  creditors  to  offer  the  estate 
for  sale  and  secretly  buying  it  in,  the  property  was  still 
capable,  under  good  management,  of  yielding  a  respectable 
income. 

But  at  this  moment,  Pauline,  at  the  end  of  her  patience, 
quarrelled  with  him,  ostensibly  over  another  of  his  es- 
capades which  had  got  to  her  ears.  Taken  aback  by  the 
suddenness  of  her  attack,  he  was  for  a  time  at  a  loss  how 
to  meet  it.  In  her  passionate  outburst,  she  may  have  said 
something  which  made  him  think  her  jealousy  was  only  an 
excuse,  and  that  for  some  other  reason  she  had  determined 
to  break  with  him.  His  shrewdness  was  not  at  fault. 
He  soon  had  ground  to  believe  that  the  Chevalier  had 
transferred  his  affection  from  Julie  to  his  beautiful  com- 
patriot. Very  much  hurt,  Beaumarchais  immediately 
taxed  him  with  unfaithfulness  to  Julie,  which  was  bad 
enough  ;  but  words  failed  him  to  express  his  indignation 
that  the  Chevalier  should  attempt  to  persuade  Pauline 
(after  all  he  had  done  for  her)  to  leave  him  also  in  the  lurch. 
He  would  never  have  believed  such  turpitude  possible  ! 

The  Chevalier  thought  it  prudent  to  defend  himself. 
He  told  Beaumarchais  that  he,  who  had  suffered  so  much 
from  calumny,  ought,  of  all  people,  to  know  better  than 
listen  to  such  idle  tales.     He  wrote,  not  to  ask  forgiveness, 

but  because  he  owed  it  to  himself  and  to  Mile.  Le  B 

that  the  truth  should  be  known  on  a  point  which  com- 
promised her,  and  also  because  "  it  would  be  painful, 
very  painful,  to  me  to  lose  your  esteem." 

So  far  so  good.  Beaumarchais  went  farther  and  fared 
worse.  He  wrote  to  Pauline  for  an  explanation.  This  is 
her  reply  : 

"  Since  before  receiving  your  letter,  I  was  unaware  of 
the  proposal  of  M.  le  Chevalier,  and  do  not  understand 
anything  about  the  matter,  you  will  perhaps  allow  me  to 
make  inquiries  before  giving  you  my  answer " 

Beaumarchais  next  wrote  to  his  friend,  Pauline's  cousin, 
accusing  him  also  of  making  trouble,  and  concluded  by 
saying  that  he  no  longer  desired  to  marry  her,  but  this 
he  wished  to  be  kept  secret.  The  cousin  replied  that  when 
his  correspondent  was  in  a  state  to  listen  to  reason  he  would 
be  ashamed  of  having  called  his  good  faith  into  question, 

64 


The  Story  of  the  Beautiful  Creole 

and  proceeded  warmly  to  defend  both  Pauline  and  the 
Chevalier.  His  letter  is  dated  the  8th  November,  1765, 
and  is  followed  by  a  gap  in  the  correspondence  until  the 
final  rupture  in  February,  1766.  By  this  time  the  Chevalier 
appears  to  have  definitely  supplanted  Beaumarchais  in 
the  affection  of  the  young  Creole.  The  glamour  of  her 
highly  emotional  friendship  for  Julie  had  naturally  dis- 
appearedj,  to  give  place  outwardly  to  a  relationship  of  the 
strictest  formality,  and  secretly  to  a  spiteful  and  vexatious 
rivalry. 

After  reading  the  foregoing  letters  no  one  will  deny 
that  Pauline  may  have  had  some  justification  for  her 
conduct  towards  Beaumarchais ;  but  she  really  had 
behaved  badly  to  Julie,  Yet,  Uke  a  true  daughter  of  Eve, 
she  probably  felt  far  more  compunction  for  her  treatment 
of  Pierre  Augustin,  who  rather  deserved  it,  than  for  his 
sister  who  did  not.  The  truth  is  that  most  women  are 
capable  of  perfect  loyalty  to  a  man,  but  find  it  less  easy 
to  be  equally  loyal  to  a  woman  ;  among  men,  on  the  other 
hand,  such  loyalty  is  less  common  towards  women  than 
towards  each  other. 

In  his  mortification,  Beaumarchais  made  a  last  effort 
to  win  Pauline  back  to  him.  But  that  this  thing  should 
have  happened  to  him,  of  all  men,  upset  his  self-confidence 
to  such  an  extent  that,  whilst  trying  to  be  conciliatory, 
his  irritation  frequently  got  the  better  of  his  civility  and 
even  his  knowledge  of  the  world. 

"  So  you  have  renounced  me,"  he  wrote  to  her,  "  and 
what  time  have  you  chosen  to  do  it  ? — that  which  I  had 
indicated  to  your  friends  and  mine  as  the  date  of  our 
union.  I  have  seen  treachery  taking  advantage  of  weak- 
ness to  turn  even  my  offers  of  service  against  me.  I  have 
seen  you,  who  have  so  often  grieved  over  the  injustices  I 
have  suffered,  join  with  my  enemies  to  accuse  me  of  wrongs 
which  never  even  entered  my  head.  If  I  did  not  mean 
to  marry  you,  should  I  have  put  so  little  formality  into 
the  services  I  have  rendered  you  ?  .  .  .  Everything  I  have 
done  has  been  turned  against  me.  The  conduct  of  a 
double-faced  and  perfidious  friend,  whilst  giving  me  a 
cruel  lesson,  has  taught  me  that  no  woman  is  so  honest 
or  so  tender  that  she  cannot  be  won  over.     The  contempt 

65  5 


Figaro  :   The  Life  of  Beaumarchais 

of  all  who  know  what  he  has  done  is  his  just  reward.  But 
to  return  to  you.  It  is  not  without  regret  that  I  have 
thought  of  you,  After  the  first  heat  of  my  resentment  had 
passed,  and  when  I  insisted  on  your  formally  rejecting  my 
offer  of  marriage  in  writing,  there  was  mingled  with  my 
vexation  a  vague  curiosity  as  to  whether  you  would  really 
take  this  final  step.  Now,  without  further  delay,  my 
position  must  be  cleared  once  for  all.  I  have  received  a 
very  advantageous  offer  of  marriage.  On  the  point  of 
accepting,  I  felt  myself  restrained  by  some  honourable 
scruple  :  some  thought  of  the  past  made  me  hesitate.  I 
ought  to  have  felt  myself  quite  free,  after  what  has  passed 
between  us  ;  yet  I  was  not  easy  ;  your  letters  did  not  tell 
me  sufficiently  clearly  what  I  ought  to  know.  I  beg  you 
to  answer  me  exactly.  Have  you  so  entirely  renounced 
me  that  I  am  free  to  enter  into  an  engagement  with  another 
woman  ?  Ask  this  of  your  heart.  If  you  have  totally 
severed  the  knot  which  united  us,  do  not  hesitate  to  let 
me  know  at  once.  In  order  to  spare  you  embarrassment 
in  answering  my  question,  I  would  add,  in  writing,  that  I 
have  restored  our  relationship  to  what  it  was  before  these 
storms  arose.  My  request  would  be  improper  if  I  did  not 
give  you  entire  liberty  of  choice.  Let  your  heart  alone 
reply.  If  you  do  not  wish  to  give  me  back  my  liberty,  tell 
me  that  you  are  for  ever  the  same  sweet  and  loving  Pauline 
that  I  once  knew  ;  that  you  believe  you  will  be  happy  in 
belonging  to  me,  and  I  will  immediately  break  with  every- 
body but  you.  The  only  request  I  have  to  make  is  that 
for  three  days  the  most  absolute  secrecy  be  preserved  ; 
leave  the  rest  to  me.  In  this  case,  keep  this  letter,  the 
reply  to  which  will  be  brought  to  me.  If  your  heart 
already  belongs  to  another  and  you  feel  an  invincible 
estrangement  from  me,  at  least  give  m.e  credit  for  my 
honourable  overtures.  Give  the  bearer  your  decision 
which  liberates  me,  then  I  shall  sincerely  believe  I  have 
fulfilled  all  my  duties,  and  shall  be  content.     Adieu.  ..." 

Before  Pauline  could  respond  Beaumarchais  withdrew 
this  letter,  and  the  same  day  returned  it  to  her  with  the 
following  enclosure  : 

*'  I  asked  you  for  a  written  answer.  You  sent  after  my 
sister  to  ask  her  for  the  letter  to  which  you  promised  to 

66 


The  Story  of  the  Beautiful  Creole 

reply.  She  thought  fit  to  withdraw  and  return  it  to  me. 
I  send  it  back  to  you,  and  beg  you  to  read  it  attentively 
and  to  decide  formally.  I  particularly  desire  that  no  one 
should  come  between  you  and  me  in  order  that  I  may  be 
assured  of  the  sincerity  of  your  declarations.  I  return  the 
parcel  of  your  letters.  If  you  keep  them,  kindly  enclose 
mine  with  your  answer.  Reading  your  letters  has  moved 
me  ;  I  do  not  wish  to  renew  that  pain  ;  but  before  replying 
consider  well  what  is  to  your  best  advantage,  both  as 
regards  fortune  and  happiness.  My  intention  is  that, 
forgetting  the  past,  we  should  pass  our  days  happily  and 
peacefully  together.  Do  not  let  the  fear  of  having  to  live 
with  members  of  my  family,  who  do  not  please  you,  inter- 
fere with  your  love  for  me,  if  another  passion  has  not 
extinguished  it.  My  domestic  affairs  are  so  arranged, 
that,  whether  it  be  you  or  another,  my  wife  shall  be  the 
happy  and  undisputed  mistress  of  my  home.  Your  uncle 
laughed  at  me  when  I  reproached  him  with  being  opposed 
to  me.  He  told  me  that,  in  his  opinion,  I  had  no  reason 
to  fear  being  rejected  unless  his  niece  had  gone  crazy.  It 
is  true  that,  at  the  moment  of  renouncing  you  for  ever,  I 
felt  an  emotion  which  told  me  I  loved  you  more  than  I 
could  have  believed.  What  I  ask  you,  therefore,  is  in 
absolute  good  faith.  Do  not  ever  deceive  yourself  by 
giving  me  the  sorrow  of  seeing  you  the  wife  of  a  certain 
man.  He  would  never  dare  to  hold  up  his  head  in  public 
again  if  he  should  contemplate  carrying  out  this  double 
treachery.  Pardon  me  if  I  become  heated.  The  very 
thought  of  it  makes  my  blood  boil.  But,  whatever  your 
decision  may  be,  I  cannot  wait  any  longer.  I  have  laid 
aside  all  my  business  in  order  once  more  to  give  myself 
up  to  you. 

"  Your  uncle  has  pointed  out  to  me  how  little  this 
marriage  would  be  to  my  advantage,  but  I  am  far  from 
allowing  such  considerations  to  deter  me.  I  want  to  be 
indebted  for  you  to  no  one  but  yourself,  or  all  is  over  for 
ever.  I  rely  on  your  treating  this  matter  as  strictly  con- 
fidential, except  for  your  aunt.  You  will  understand  that 
you  would  grievously  offend  me  if  it  should  get  to  my  ears 
that  you  have  abused  my  confidence.  Not  a  soul  knows 
that  I  have  written  to  you.  I  confess  that  it  would  be 
delightful  to  me  if,  whilst  all  my  enemies  slept,  peace  were 

67  5* 


Figaro  :    The  Life  of  Beaumarchais 

concluded  between  us.  Read  your  letters  over  again,  and 
you  will  understand  whether  I  have  found  again  in  my 
heart  the  love  to  which  they  gave  birth." 

If  in  her  former  letter  Pauline  had  failed  to  make  her 
meaning  clear  to  her  deserted  lover,  no  such  objection  could 
be  made  to  her  reply  : 

"  I  can  only  repeat,  sir,  what  I  told  your  sister,  that 
my  mind  is  made  up  irrevocably  :  so  I  thank  you  for 
your  offer,  and  desire  with  all  my  heart  that  you  will 
marry  somebody  who  will  make  you  happy.  I  shall 
hear  of  it  with  great  pleasure,  as  I  shall  of  every  good 
fortune  which  happens  to  you  ;  I  assured  your  sister 
as  much. 

"  My  aunt  and  I  must  tell  you  how  vexed  we  are  at 
your  disrespectful  treatment,  on  our  account,  of  a  man 
whom  we  regard  as  our  friend.  I  know  better  than  any- 
body how  wrong  it  is  of  you  to  say  he  is  treacherous.  I 
told  your  sister  only  this  morning  that  a  young  lady  who 
used  to  live  with  my  aunt  was  the  cause  of  all  that  has 
happened  to-day,  and  that  since  then,  it  was  only  the  fear 
of  publicity  which  held  me  back.  You  have  still  several 
letters  of  mine,  among  them  two  written  at  that  time, 
another  written  from  Fontainebleau,  and  a  few  others 
which  I  shall  be  glad  if  you  will  be  good  enough  to  return 
to  me. 

"  As  I  have    already  told   you,  I  will  ask   one  of   our 
San  Domingo  friends  to  call  upon  you,  to  conclude  every- 
thing which  is  outstanding  between  us. 
"  I  am.  Sir, 

"  Your  very  humble  and  most  obedient  servant, 

"  Le  B.  .  .  ." 

Pauline  may  not  be  quite  candid,  but  at  least  she  is 
perfectly  clear.  She  no  longer  loved  him,  and  she  gave 
as  the  reason  of  her  change  of  heart  an  alleged  infidelity 
which  was  supposed  to  have  been  forgiven  and  forgotten 
months  before. 

Pauline's  cousin  now  wrote  to  Beaumarchais,  regretting 
the  rupture  and  offering  the  time-honoured  consolations 
appropriate  to  the  kind  of  misfortune  which  had  befallen 

68 


The  Story  of  the  Beautiful  Creole 

him.  As  the  worthy  man  says,  with  more  truth  than 
originahty  :  "  Man  proposes  but  God  disposes."  He 
concluded  by  requesting  his  friend,  in  the  name  of  the 
ladies,  to  hand  over  to  him  all  the  papers  relative  to  the 
affairs  of  Mile.  Le  B.  .  .  .  The  letter  is  dated  February 
nth,  1766. 

A  few  months  later  Beaumarchais  had  the  humiliation 
of  seeing  the  Chevalier  de  S  .  .  .  lead  Pauline  to  the  altar. 

The  poetry  of  the  deserted  lover  at  once  gave  place 
to  the  prose  of  the  anxious  creditor.  He  drew  up  and 
submitted  a  detailed  and  businesslike  statement  of  the 
money  owing  to  him  by  Pauline  and  her  aunt,  and  in 
reply,  the  Chevalier,  being  on  his  honeymoon,  deputed 
his  brother,  a  pettifogging  and  peppery  Abbe,  to  call  upon 
Beaumarchais  and  thresh  the  matter  out  with  him.  The 
Abbe  de  S  .  .  .  conducted  the  negotiations  with  great 
vivacity  and  little  consideration,  wrangling  over  every 
item  of  the  memorandum.  After  several  stormy  inter- 
views and  the  interchange  of  many  caustic  letters,  Beau- 
marchais wrote  as  follows  : 

"  Monsieur  l'Abbe, — I  beg  you  to  note  that  I  have 
never  failed  in  civility  towards  you  personally,  and  that 
I  owe  nothing  but  contempt  to  him  whom  you  represent, 
as  I  have  had  the  honour  of  telling  you  twenty  times  over, 
and  as  I  should  very  much  like  to  tell  him  to  his  face,  if 
he  had  been  as  prompt  in  showing  himself  as  he  was  in 

stepping  into  my  shoes.     The  proof  that  Mile.  Le  B 

had  need  of  me,  of  my  affection,  my  counsels,  my  money, 
is  that  if  it  had  not  been  for  your  brother,  who  disturbed 
the  union  of  six  years'  standing,  she  would  still  be  making 
use  of  my  faculties,  which  I  have  lavished  upon  her  so 
long  as  they  were  agreeable  and  useful  to  her.  It  is  true 
that  she  has  bought  my  services  very  dearly,  since  she 
owes  to  our  affection  for  your  brother  the  happiness  of 
having  married  him,  which  she  would  never  have  done 
had  he  remained  in  the  place  where  he  was  vegetating  when 
I  found  and  introduced  him  into  my  family.  I  do  not 
understand  the  hidden  meaning  of  the  phrase  in  the 
apology,  so  it  would  be  useless  to  attempt  to  reply  to 
it.  .  .  . 

"  I  shall  not  discontinue  to  meet  calumny  and  injustice 
69 


Figaro  :    The  Life  of  Beaumarchais 

by  doing  all  the  good  I  can.  I  have  always  liked  to  do 
good,  though  expecting  nothing  but  evil  in  return,  so  your 
advice  adds  nothing  to  my  disposition  in  this  respect. 

"  As  you  admit  deviating  from  what  is  becoming  to 
your  character  in  your  dealings  with  me,  I  have  no  wish 
to  reproach  you  for  it.  It  is  enough  that  you  yourself 
confess  it  for  me  to  bear  no  ill  will. 

"  I  do  not  know  why  you  have  underlined  the  words 
your  sister,  when  reminding  me  that  I  said  it  was  thus 

that  I  loved  Mile.  Le  B .     Does  this  irony  fall  on  her, 

on  me,  or  on  your  brother  ?     However,  that  is  just  as  you 

please.     Although   the   fate   of   Mile.    Le    B has    no 

longer  anything  to  do  with  me,  I  have  no  desire  to  speak 
of  her  in  other  terms  than  those  I  have  used.  It  is  not  of 
her  that  I  complain.  She  is,  as  you  say,  *  young  and 
inexperienced,'  and  although  she  has  very  little  fortune, 
your  brother  has  made  good  use  of  his  experience  in  marry- 
ing her,  and  has  done  very  well  for  himself. 

**  Consider  one  other  point,  M.  I'Abbe.  Whatever  I 
have  said  of  him  is  meant  in  no  way  to  reflect  on  you. 
It  would  be  too  humiliating  for  a  man  of  your  profession 
to  be  suspected  of  having  had  anything  to  do  with  your 
brother's  behaviour  towards  me.  Let  him  bear  the  blame 
himself,  and  do  not  attempt  to  excuse  things  unworthy 
of  an  apologist  as  upright  as  yourself." 

In  the  end  Beaumarchais  considerably  reduced  his 
claim,  and  Pauline  accepted  the  revised  memorandum. 
A  year  after  the  marriage  her  husband  died,  and  no 
attempt  had  been  made  to  pay  off  the  debt. 

Speaking  of  Beaumarchais  in  a  letter  to  her  cousin, 
written  in  1769,  she  says  :  "He  need  not  worry  himself  ; 
he  shall  be  paid."  And  there  the  matter  ended.  Beau- 
marchais pressed  her  no  further,  and  a  love  affair  which 
was  to  have  been  eternal  ended  in  an  exceedingly  business- 
like statement  of  account,  amounting  to  24,441  livres,  4 
sous,  4  deniers,  which  was  never  settled.* 

*  From  letters  quoted  by  Lom^nie,  v.  i.,  p.  166  et  s»q. 


70 


CHAPTER  VIII 

BEAUMARCHAIS    IN    HIS    EARLY    PLAYS 

IN  all  that  he  did,  Beaumarchais  was  one  of  those 
innovating  men  whom  less  enterprising  people  regard 
with  fear  and  bewilderment.  When,  at  thirty-five,  he 
turned  his  attention  to  the  theatre,  it  was  to  support 
and  develop  the  daring  theories  recently  enunciated  by 
Diderot  and  illustrated  by  his  turgid  and  indigestible 
drama  Le  Pere  de  Famille,  which,  however,  marked  a  revo- 
lution in  writings  for  the  stage.  Beaumarchais  practised 
the  theory  with  more  precision  and  clearness  than  the 
master  himself,  adding  many  features  of  his  own,  and, 
in  some  respects,  carrying  it  much  farther  than  Diderot 
would  have  been  prepared  to  go.  "  Ah,  my  dear  Beau- 
marchais ! "  exclaimed  the  great  journalist  on  reading 
the  play,  "  into  what  a  hornet's  nest  have  you  thrust 
your  head  !  "  This  result  was  inevitable,  for  they  were 
the  first  masters  deliberately  to  use  the  theatre  as  an 
instrument  for  propaganda. 

In  introducing  his  new  play,  Beaumarchais  was  one  of 
the  first  to  use  the  word  drama  for  a  dramatic  composition. 
Anticipating  Mr.  Bernard  Shaw  (whose  genius  resembles 
his  in  more  than  one  particular),  Beaumarchais  prefaced  his 
play  by  a  reasoned  discourse  on  his  views  of  dramatic  art, 
which  is  not  less  interesting  than  the  piece  itself. 

**  The  drama,"  he  wrote,  "  holds  an  intermediate  position 
between  the  heroic  tragedy  and  the  amusing  comedy. 
It  should  be  written  in  prose,  and  must  confine  itself  to 
painting  situations  drawn  from  everyday  life.  The  dialogue 
must  be  as  simple  and  natural  as  it  is  possible  to  make  it. 
Its  true  eloquence  is  that  of  situations,  and  the  only  colour 
permitted  is  the  animated,  vigorous,  direct,  undisciplined 
and  authentic  language  of  the  passions." 


Figaro  :   The  Life  of  Beaumarchais 

Beaumarchais  thought  very  little  of  the  heroic  manner. 
Like  Huckleberry  Finn,  "  he  took  no  stock  in  dead  people." 
He  even  uses  the  word  classical  in  an  ironical  sense  and  as 
a  synonym  for  barbarous.  He  will  not  admit  that  heroes 
and  kings  have  any  right  to  figure  in  the  serious  drama. 
"  They  excite  no  real  interest  in  us,"  he  said,  "  their 
fortunes,  being  exceptional,  do  not  touch  our  hearts.  It 
is  only  our  vanity  which  is  tickled  by  being  initiated  into 
the  secrets  of  a  magnificent  court  :  what  really  interests 
the  spectator  is  a  misfortune  which  might  happen  to  him  ; 
that  is  to  say,  a  merchant  filing  his  petition  in  bankruptcy 
is  more  dramatic  than  a  fallen  king,  or  a  warrior  who  has 
just  lost  a  battle.  ..." 

*'  What,"  he  exclaimed,  "  are  the  revolutions  of  Athens 
and  Rome  to  me,  the  peaceful  subject  of  a  monarchical 
state  in  the  eighteenth  century  ?  Why  does  the  narrative 
of  the  earthquake  which  engulfed  Lima  and  its  inhabitants, 
three  thousand  leagues  away,  move  me  profoundly,  whilst 
the  judicial  murder  of  Charles  L  in  England  only  makes 
me  angry  ?  It  is  because  the  volcano  which  burst  into 
eruption  in  Peru  might  shake  Paris  and  bury  me  under 
the  ruins,  and  perhaps  threatens  me  at  this  very  moment  ; 
whilst  we  need  never  fear  anything  quite  like  the  unheard-of 
misfortune  of  the  King  of  England."  The  only  thing  which 
this  proves,  is  that  in  1767  Beaumarchais  was  no  prophet. 

In  writing  his  play  he  spared  no  effort  to  be  true  to 
nature.  "  If  I  am  blamed  for  having  wTJtten  this  drama 
too  simply,  I  confess  that  I  have  no  excuse  to  offer.  Again 
and  again  I  have  substituted  an  artless  phrase  for  a  more 
laboured  one  in  the  first  draft.  But  how  difficult  it  is  to 
be  simple  !  " 

Eugenie,  like  all  the  plays  of  Beaumarchais,  is  dis- 
tinguished by  a  thinly-veiled  attack  on  class  privileges, 
and  various  abuses  of  his  time.  The  plot  turns  on  a 
mock  marriage,  in  which  the  heroine's  brother  comes  to 
avenge  his  sister's  betrayal,  or  compel  her  false  lover  to 
marry  her,  and  was  obviously  suggested  by  the  author's 
adventure  with  Clavijo.  The  scene  is  laid  in  London, 
being  changed  from  Paris,  almost  at  the  last  moment, 
partly  on  the  suggestion  of  the  Due  de  Nivernais,  and 
partly  in  anticipation  of  difficulties  with  the  censor. 

As  a  play  it  is  not  as  convincing  as  it  might  be,  and 
72 


Beaumarchais  in  his  Early  Plays 

is  as  melodramatic  a  piece  as  ever  faced  the  footlights. 
Nevertheless,  in  spite  of  its  faults,  it  is  not  without  merit. 
The  improbability  of  the  plot  being  admitted,  it  is  developed 
with  considerable  ingenuity,  and  moves  easily  and  rapidly 
to  its  climax.  The  first  three  acts,  especially,  show  that 
Beaumarchais  already  possessed  a  certain  mastery  in 
dialogue  and  theatrical  presentation.  The  characters  are 
well  accentuated,  and  the  heroine,  drawn  with  some 
emotional  power,  has  an  engaging  charm  and  quiet  dignity 
worthy  of  a  less  equivocal  setting. 

A  novelty  introduced  to  give  realism  to  his  play  was  to 
dispense  with  a  drop-scene  at  the  end  of  each  act,  and  to 
fill  in  the  intervals  by  the  coming  and  going  of  servants 
preparing  meals,  lighting  the  cancfles,  or  re-arranging  the 
furniture,  and  so  on. 

The  author's  stage  directions  are  set  down  with  great 
particularity,  the  position  of  each  actor  being  clearly  indi- 
cated in  every  scene,  and  his  costume  described  to  the 
smallest  detail. 

His  next  care  was  to  do  all  in  his  power  to  ensure  a 
favourable  reception  for  the  play.  He  was  an  early 
master  of  the  art  of  self-advertisement,  and  he  believed 
in  leaving  nothing  to  chance.  To  the  general  public  he 
was  known  only  as  a  prosperous  financier  and  a  man  of 
pleasure  who  had  made  some  way  at  court.  His  less 
fortunate  fellow-dramatists  bitterly  resented  his  intrusion, 
and  were  not  above  plotting  the  downfall  of  the  drama. 

"It  is  unprecedented,"  wrote  Colle  in  his  Journal, 
"  that  the  public  should  so  generally  vent  its  fury  on  an 
author.  I  speak  only  of  his  person,  not  of  his  piece." 
The  new  writer  discovered,  in  fact,  that  a  work  of  art, 
Hke  a  human  being,  is  conceived  in  joy,  moulded  silently 
amid  fears  and  anxieties,  pains  and  discomforts,  brought 
forth  with  difficulty,  and  often  with  grave  danger,  and 
frequently  lives  just  long  enough  to  involve  its  fond 
parent  in  endless  perplexities  and  annoyances. 

Beaumarchais  countered  the  intrigues  of  his  envious 
rivals  by  endeavouring  to  secure  the  benevolent  interest 
of  his  aristocratic  friends.  To  this  end  he  wrote  to 
Mesdames,  the  Due  d'Orleans,  the  Due  de  Noailles,  and  his 
daughter,  the  Comtesse  de  Tesse,  each  letter  adroitly 
turned    to    suit  the  person  to  whom   it   was  addressed. 

73 


Figaro  :    The  Life  of  Beaumarchais 

Lastly,  he  submitted  his  first  draft  to  the  Due  de  Nivernais, 
a  member  of  the  Academ}',  and  a  man  of  considerable 
importance  in  the  literary  world,  begging  him  to  give  it 
the  benefit  of  his  criticism. 

After  retaining  the  MS.  for  two  daj's,  the  Due  returned 
it  with  several  pages  of  urbane  and  extremely  judicious 
comments,  most  of  which  Beaumarchais  promptly  turned 
to  account.  The  Due  vigorously  protested  against  the 
improbability  of  the  plot  and  suggested  many  emendations. 
But  as  these  would  have  meant  recasting  the  whole  play, 
Beaumarchais  tried  to  meet  his  objections  by  transferring 
the  scenes  from  France  to  England.  The  noble  critic 
also  confessed  to  finding  the  false  lover  entirely  uncon- 
vincing. He  could  not  conceive  how  such  an  utter  scoun- 
drel, without  conscience  and  without  remorse,  after 
deceiving  his  victim  to  the  last,  should  yet  find  grace  in 
her  eyes  even  when  she  had  discovered  his  crime.  He  was 
no  believer  in  eleventh  hour  conversions.  Although  Beau- 
marchais, in  accordance  with  the  Due's  strictures,  greatly 
modified  this  character,  the  baseness  of  the  lover  remains 
the  weak  point  of  the  play. 

Apart  from  structural  criticisms,  the  Due  offered  many 
suggestions  on  the  writer's  style.  In  the  original  MS., 
for  instance,  when  the  irascible  Baron  learns  the  truth 
as  to  Eugenie's  betrayal,  his  sister,  in  rebuking  him  for 
his  anger,  is  made  to  say  :  "  Courage,  wild  man  {homme 
des  hois),  do  not  spare  thy  daughter.  Be  quick  !  Take 
a  knife  and  plunge  it  into  her  heart  !  " 

"  What  if  we  take  away  this  knife  ?  "  suavely  asked  the 
Due.  "HI  were  \'ou,  I  would  also  cut  out  the  wild  man, 
who  is  a  kind  of  monkey  hardly  suitable  for  use  as  a  form 
of  address." 

Beaumarchais  wisely  accepted  both  emendation^  and 
recast  the  whole  scene,  greatly  to  its  advantage. 

The  first  performance  of  Eugenie  took  place  on  the 
29th  January,  1767,  not  on  the  25th  June,  as  stated 
in  most  editions  of  the  author's  works.  The  piece  had  a 
ver}^  cold  reception.  But  all  is  for  the  best  to  those  who 
know  how  to  profit  by  everything  that  befalls  them. 
Neither  as  a  man  nor  as  a  writer  was  Beaumarchais  to  be 
beaten    at    the   first    skirmish.     He    carefully    noted   the 

74 


Beaumarchais  in  his  Early  Plays 

remarks  of  the  audience  and  profited  by  the  hints  they 
let  fall,  sought  the  advice  of  the  players  and  of  his  friena, 
Poisinet,  and  abridged  and  re-wrote  large  portions  of  the 
play,  especially  in  the  "  two  last  acts  which  had  changed 
the  success  of  the  first  three  into  a  rout/' 

His  alterations  were  to  such  good  purpose  that,  two 
days  later,  on  its  second  representation,  the  audience 
ceased  to  hiss  ;  they  wept,  or  "  snivelled,"  as  Colle  unkindly 
observed.  "  It  is  all  the  fault  of  the  women!"  cried  the 
rival  dramatist  indignantly.  "  They  can  talk  of  nothing 
but  Eugenie  !  They  have  infected  our  gilded  youth  with 
their  own  silly  fancies  !  " 

As  some  people  have  a  natural  gift  for  appreciation, 
so  others  have  an  aptitude  for  disparagement.  Colle 
belonged  to  the  latter  and,  on  the  whole,  far  less  intelligent 
school,  for  like  the  Blackbird  in  Chantecler  : 

" son  oeil  n'est  jamais  ebloui. 

II  a,  devant  la  fleur,  dont  il  voit  trop  la  tige, 
Le  regard  qui  restraint  et  le  mot  qui  mi  tige." 

Possibly  he  may  have  been  smarting  under  his  failure 
of  the  previous  year  to  place  his  admirable  comedy  La 
Partie  de  Chasse  de  Henri  IV,,  which  was  destined  eight 
years  later  to  achieve  a  great  and  lasting  success  at  the 
Theatre  Frangais. 

Other  critics,  however,  were  far  less  severe.  Voltaire, 
in  a  letter  to  d'Argental,  says  :  **  I  shall  read  Eugenie 
with  great  interest,  to  see  how  it  is  possible  for  such  a 
hasty  man  to  make  everybody  weep." 

"  Eugenie,  played  for  the  first  time  on  the  29th 
January  of  this  year,"  wrote  Freron  in  his  Annee  Lit- 
ter aire,  "  was  rather  badly  received  by  the  public  and, 
indeed,  looked  like  an  utter  failure  ;  but  after  numerous 
curtailments  and  corrections,  it  has  since  achieved  a 
brilliant  revival  and  has  for  a  long  time  held  the  public. 
This  success  does  our  players  great  credit." 

Speaking  of  the  author,  the  June  number  of  the  Mercure 
de  France  observed  :  "  He  is  one  of  those  happy  beings, 
born  under  a  lucky  star,  whom  we  sometimes  meet  in  this 
world,  on  whom  criticism  has  occasionally  to  exercise 
itself  with  severity,  but  who  possess  the  secret  of  always 
charming  us  back  to  them." 

75 


Figaro  :   The  Life  of  Beaumarchais 

The  distinguished  acting  of  Mile.  Doligny  in  the  title 
role  largely  contributed  to  the  ultimate  success  of  the 
piece  which  had  made  such  an  inauspicious  beginning, 

Beaumarchais  had  presented  his  drama,  entirely  free 
of  author's  rights,  to  the  players  of  the  Comedie  Fran9aise. 
It  had  been  performed  seven  times,  when  its  run  was 
interrupted  by  the  sudden  illness  of  Preville,  the  leading 
actor,  and  another  seven  times  upon  his  return.  This 
was  considered  not  a  bad  record  at  that  period. 

On  the  loth  April,  1769,  Garrick  wrote  advising 
Beaumarchais  that  he  had  adapted  Eugenie,  under  the 
title  of  The  School  for  Rakes,  and  played  it  with  great 
applause  at  Drury  Lane. 

The  drama  was  revived  at  the  Comedie  Frangaise  for 
the  last  time  in  August,  1863,  but  failed  to  hold  the 
audience,  and  after  four  representations  was  withdrawn. 

If  his  Spanish  adventure  suggested  to  Beaumarchais 
the  plot  of  his  first  play,  his  relations  with  the  beautiful 
Creole  were  largely  responsible  for  all  the  best  scenes  in 
his  second.  Indeed,  he  went  so  far  as  to  give  his  heroine 
the  name  of  Pauline  :   his  taste  was  always  uncertain. 

The  new  piece  was  called  The  Two  Friends,  and  was 
described  as  "  by  a  man  who  has  none." 

Just  as  the  fantastic  ideas  of  Diderot  on  pictorial  art 
had  exerted  a  baneful  influence  over  the  work  of  Greuze, 
so  now  his  equally  far-fetched  notions  on  dramatic  art 
for  a  time  led  astray  the  comic  genius  of  Beaumarchais. 
Following  the  master's  dictum  that  social  conditions, 
rather  than  the  interplay  of  character,  should  form  the 
chief  interest  in  writings  for  the  theatre,  Beaumarchais 
did  his  best  to  thrill  a  Comedie  Francaise  audience  with 
a  highly  improbable  story  of  the  vicissitudes  of  the  Lyons 
silk  trade.  f^ 

The  two  friends  of  the  title  live  together  in  a  c^mgxy 
house  in  the  centre  of  the  silk  farming  industry,  and%ne 
of  them  hearing  that  the  other,  unknown  to  himself,  is 
threatened  with  bankruptcy,  diverts  the  funds  of  the 
business  of  which  he  is  the  manager,  and,  until  the  end 
of  the  play,  allows  himself  to  be  looked  upon  as  a  thief, 
in  a  hopeless  attempt  to  postpone  the  inevitable  revelation 
of  the  truth.     All  comes  right  in  the  end,  but  there  is  no 

76 


Beaumarchais  in  his  Early  Plays 

good  reason  why  the  situation  should  not  have  been 
cleared  up  at  the  close  of  the  first  act — except,  of  course, 
the  author's  determination  to  spread  his  drama  over 
five  acts. 

It  was  in  vain  that  Beaumarchais  expended  all  his 
skill  in  portraying  the  charming  love  story  of  Pauline  and 
young  Melac.  Nothing  could  redeem,  from  the  dramatic 
point  of  view,  the  essential  dullness  of  the  subject  around 
which  the  author  had  unwisely  chosen  to  write  his  play. 

The  Two  Friends  was  staged  for  the  first  time  on  the 
13th  January,  1770,  and  after  being  played  ten  times  to 
steadily  dwindling  audiences,  was  withdrawn  never  to 
make  its  appearance  in  Paris  again.  The  public  was  clearly 
of  Voltaire's  opinion  that  "  Every  kind  of  play  is  good, 
except  the  dull  kind."  Its  failure  was  greeted  with  much 
satisfaction  by  its  author's  enemies  and  rivals,  but  the 
critic  who  described  him  as  "  a  sombre,  peevish,  dismal 
character,  incapable  of  producing  anything  with  any 
gaiety  or  liveliness  in  it,"  had  mistaken  his  vocation. 

At  its  first  performance,  a  wag  in  the  pit  cried  : 

"  This  is  a  real  bankruptcy  !  Bang  go  my  twenty 
sous !  " 

A  few  days  later,  whilst  the  play  was  still  running, 
Beaumarchais  met  Sophie  Arnould,  who  was  then  singing 
in  the  unsuccessful  opera  Zoroaster. 

"In  a  week's  time,"  he  said,  "  you  will  have  no 
audience,  or  next  to  none." 

"  Your  Friends  will  send  us  some  !  "  she  laughingly 
replied. 

The  final  blow  was  given  in  an  anonymous  quatrain 
quoted  by  Grimm  : 

"  J'ai  vu  de  Beaumarchais  le  drame  ridicule, 
Et  je  vais  en  un  mot  vous  dire  ce  que  c'est : 
C'est  un  change  ou  I'argent  circule. 
Sans  produire  aucun  interet." 


77 


CHAPTER  IX 

MME.     LEVEQUE     AND     THE     SECOND     MARRIAGE     OF     BEAU- 
MARCHAIS 

AMONG  the  most  intimate  friends  of  Julie  Car  on  was 
Madame  Buffault,  a  famous  Parisian  beauty  and 
the  wife  of  a  retired  silk  merchant,  now  Receiver-General 
of  Customs  and  Tolls  of  the  City. 

One  day  towards  the  end  of  the  Pauline  episode,  this 
lady  called  on  Juhe,  and  inquired  after  her  brother,  whom 
she  said  she  had  not  seen  for  a  long  time. 

"  I  do  not  know  whether  he  is  in  his  study  :    I  believe 
he  is  at  work  on  a  play." 

"  I  want  particularly  to  speak  to  him,"  said  the  visitor. 
Beaumarchais  was  sent  for,  and  soon  made  his  appear- 
ance in  neglected  attire,  unshaven,  with  ruffled  hair  and 
preoccupied  look. 

"  Ah,  my  dear  fellow,  what  are  you  so  busy  about,  when 
an  amiable  woman,  recently  widowed,  and  already  much 
sought  after,  might  give  you  the  preference  ?  I  am 
going  to  take  her  to-morrow  to  the  lonely  part  of  the 
Champs  Elysees,  known  as  the  '  Widow's  Drive.'  Take 
your  horse  for  a  run  and  meet  us  as  if  by  chance.  You 
can  accost  me  and  you  will  be  able  to  see  how  you  suit 
each  other." 

The  next  day  Beaumarchais  ordered  his  finest  horse 
to  be  saddled^  and,  followed  by  his  mounted  servant,  rode 
to  the  appointed  meeting-place.  He  noticed  the  carriage 
in  which  the  two  ladies  were  driving  some  time  before 
joining  them.  At  last  Madame  Buffault  pointed  out  the 
superb  rider  to  her  companion,  said  that  she  knew  him, 
and  asked  if  she  might  introduce  him.  Beaumarchais 
soon  found  himself  seated  in  the  carriage  with  the  ladies, 
whilst  his  servant  was  ordered  to  return  home  with  the 

7^ 


Mme.  Lev^que  and  the  Second  Marriage 

mounts.  His  new  acquaintance  was  Genevieve  Madeleine 
Wattebled,  widow  of  Antoine  Angelique  Leveque,  Garde 
General  des  Menus  Plaisirs,  who  had  died  on  the  21st 
December,  1767,  leaving  her  a  handsome  fortune.  The 
daughter  of  Philippe  Wattebled,  cabinet  maker  to  the 
King,  she  was  born  on  the  nth  November,  173 1,  and  was, 
therefore,  three  months  older,  not  three  years  younger, 
than  Beaumarchais,  as  the  gallantry  of  his  biographers 
has  led  them  to  assert.  Mme.  Leveque  is  reputed  to  have 
been  a  most  attractive  woman.  The  widow  and  the 
widower  were  so  delighted  with  each  other's  society,  that 
it  was  decided  to  spend  the  rest  of  the  day  together,  Beau- 
marchais proposing  that  the  ladies  should  dine  with  him 
at  his  house.  Madame  Buffault  had  httle  difficulty  in 
persuading  her  friend  to  accept  the  invitation,  for  she  was 
already  fascinated  by  his  briUiant  talk  and  distinguished 
bearing,  and  was  naturally  curious  to  know  something 
about  his  home.  It  was  there,  as  we  have  seen,  that 
Pierre  Augustin  was  at  his  best.  The  sight  of  him  in  this 
elegant  and  well-appointed  house,  with  his  genial  and 
courtly  father  and  his  brilliant  sister,  and  the  old  family 
servants,  completed  her  captivation. 

Beaumarchais  pressed  his  advantage  with  ardour  and 
expedition,  but  Madame  Leveque  was  a  woman  of  the 
world  ;  nor  was  she  ignorant  of  her  lover's  reputation  as 
a  gay  Lothario.  Before  consenting  to  marry  him,  she  is 
said  to  have  addressed  him  in  these  words  : 

"  Monsieur  de  Beaumarchais,  I  am  a  widow.  I  am 
aware  of  how  little  importance  most  men  attach  to  the 
vows  they  utter  at  the  altar.  I  feel  how  difficult  it  is  not 
to  love  you  ;  I  know  how  devoted  you  are  to  women  ; 
but  you  are  a  man  of  honour  :  promise  me  (and  I  will 
beheve  you)  that  you  will  never  abandon  me  ;  that  you 
will  never  leave  me  alone  to  become  the  prey  of  suspicion 
and  jealousy."* 

Beaumarchais  promised,  and,  what  is  more,  appears  to 
have  kept  his  word.  They  were  married  at  the  Church  of 
Saint  Eustache,  on  the  nth  April,  1768.  And  on  the  nth 
December  following,  their  son  was  baptized  at  Saint  Sulpice 
under  the  name  of  Augustin. 

His  wife's  fortune  enabled  Beaumarchais  once  more  to 

*  Gudin,  pp.  50-53  and  65-69. 
79 


Figaro  :    The  Life  of  Beaumarchais 

take  up  the  thread  of  affairs,  and  within  a  few  months  of 
his  marriage,  in  co-operation  with  Paris  Duverney,  he 
purchased  from  the  State  a  great  part  of  the  Forest  of 
Chinon,  and  was  soon  busy  with  a  large  staff  cutting  and 
selHng  wood. 

In  a  letter  to  his  wife,  dated  the  15th  July,  1769,  from 
Rivarennes  in  Touraine,  he  writes  : 

"  Thou  askest  me  to  write  to  thee  often,  my  dearest ; 
and  I  do  so  with  all  my  heart  :  it  is  a  pleasant  relaxation 
from  my  heavy  work  in  the  village.  To  conciliate  the 
rivalries  of  the  managers  ;  to  listen  to  the  grievances  and 
claims  of  the  clerks  ;  to  check  accounts  for  more  than 
100,000  crowns,  in  small  amounts  from  20  to  30  sols, 
owing  to  the  irregularities  of  the  head  cashier,  whom  it 
is  necessary  to  relieve  of  his  post  ;  the  various  wharves 
to  visit,  to  supervise  and  examine  the  work  of  200 
labourers  felling  trees  in  the  forest  ;  to  arrange  for  the 
sawing  and  transport  of  284  acres  of  cut  timber ;  to 
construct  new  roads  from  the  forest  to  the  river  and  to 
repair  the  old  ones  ;  to  stack  150  or  250  tons  of  hay  ;  to 
provide  oats  for  thirty  cart  horses  ;  to  buy  thirty  more 
horses  for  six  more  wagons  to  transport  our  hull-timber 
before  winter  sets  in  ;  to  build  wharves  and  locks  on  the 
river  Indre,  where  the  timber  can  be  loaded  in  fifty  boats 
waiting  to  carry  it  to  Tours,  Saumur,  Angers  and  Nantes  ; 
to  sign  agreements  with  six  or  seven  farms  to  supply 
provisions  for  a  household  of  thirty  persons  ;  to  draw 
up  and  adjust  estimates  of  income  and  expenditure  for 
two  years  :  there,  my  dear  wife,  you  have  in  brief  the 
sum  of  my  labours,  of  which  a  part  is  already  accom- 
plished and  the  rest  in  a  fair  way  towards  completion  !  .  .  . 

"  As  thou  sayest,  dearest,  we  do  not  sleep  here  so 
long  as  at  Pantin,  but  this  strenuous  labour  does  not  dis- 
please me  :  since  reaching  this  retreat,  inaccessible  to 
vanity,  I  have  met  only  simple,  unmannered  folk,  such  as 
I  myself  often  desire  to  be.  I  live  in  my  offices — a  httle 
farm,  wedged  between  a  poultry  yard  and  a  kitchen  garden, 
encircled  by  a  thick  hedge.  The  walls  of  my  room  are 
white-washed,  and  the  furniture  consists  of  a  wretched 
bed,  in  which  I  sleep  like  a  top,  four  rush-bottomed  chairs, 
an   oak   table,   a  great   chimney-piece  without   facing  or 

8a 


Mme.  LevSque  and  the  Second  Marriage 

shelf  ;  but  I  see  from  my  window,  whilst  writing  to  thee, 
all  the  meadows  and  warrens  of  the  valley  in  which  I  am 
living,  full  of  robust  and  tanned  men,  who  cut  and  cart 
forage  in  wagons  drawn  by  oxen  ;  a  multitude  of  women 
and  girls,  with  rakes  on  their  shoulders  or  in  their  hands, 
singing  the  songs  of  the  countryside  with  clear  voices  as 
they  work.  Through  the  trees  in  the  distance  I  see  the 
winding  course  of  the  Indre  and  an  ancient  turreted 
castle  belonging  to  my  neighbour  Madame  de  Roncee. 
All  is  crowned  by  the  heads  of  tufted  trees  which  reach 
out  in  perspective  to  the  very  summit  of  the  hills  which 
surround  us  and  form  a  huge  frame  marking  the  horizon 
on  every  side.  This  picture  is  not  without  charm.  Good 
coarse  bread,  a  more  than  modest  diet,  and  execrable  wine 
form  my  repasts.  Truly,  if  I  dared  wish  thee  the  ill  to 
lack  everything  in  a  forlorn  land,  I  should  much  regret  not 
having  thee  at  my  side.  Adieu,  my  love  !  If  you  think 
my  description  may  interest  our  good  relatives  and  friends, 
thou  art  at  liberty  to  read  it  to  them  one  evening.  Embrace 
them  all  for  me  into  the  bargain,  and,  good-night  !  I  am 
going  to  bed  .  .  .  but  without  thee.  That  seems  often 
very  hard  to  me.  .  .  .  And  my  son,  how  is  he  ?  I  laugh 
to  myself  when  I  think  that  I  am  working  for  him." 

After  three  years  of  happy  married  life,  Madame  de 
Beaumarchais  fell  into  a  decline.  Her  husband  at  once 
called  in  two  of  the  most  famous  doctors  of  the  time — 
Tronchin  and  Lorry  ;  but  in  spite  of  all  their  skill  and  his 
own  unremitting  care,  she  died  on  the  21st  November, 
1770,  leaving  him  at  thirty-eight,  a  widower  for  the  second 
time. 

His  enemies  soon  revived  the  terrible  rumours  which 
had  arisen  on  the  sudden  death  of  his  first  wife  ;  but,  as 
in  that  case,  he  was  able  to  prove  that  his  second  wife's 
fortune  consisted  almost  entirely  of  an  annuity,  so  he  had 
everything  to  lose  by  her  death.  When,  two  years  later, 
her  son  Augustin  followed  his  mother  to  the  grave,  the 
father's  adversaries  did  not  accuse  him  of  poisoning  his 
child  also.     Even  they  drew  the  line  somewhere. 


81 


CHAPTER  X 

BEAUMARCHAIS   AT  LAW 

THE  intimate  business  and  friendly  relationship 
which  for  the  past  ten  years  had  existed  between 
Beaumarchais  and  Paris  Duverney,  had  recentty  resulted, 
as  we  have  seen,  in  the  purchase  by  the  associates  of  the 
Forest  of  Chinon,  and  had  necessitated  the  advancement 
of  large  sums  of  money  on  both  sides.  Yet  the  extent 
of  their  mutual  engagements  had  never  been  formally 
delimited.  In  view  of  Duvemey's  great  age  and  failing 
health,  and  the  probability  of  unpleasantness  on  the  part 
of  his  heir,  Beaumarchais  pressed  upon  him  the  desirability 
of  drawing  up  a  formal  and  detailed  statement  of  their 
commitments  to  each  other.  The  old  man,  who  trusted 
his  partner  implicitly,  for  long  failed  to  see  the  necessity 
of  such  a  document ;  but  at  length  yielding  to  the  con- 
stant representations  of  his  friend,  signed  a  deed  in  dupli- 
cate by  which  Beaumarchais  restored  to  him  160,000  francs 
worth  of  promissory  notes,  and  consented  to  the  cancelling  of 
the  agreement  respecting  the  Forest  of  Chinon.  On  his  side 
Duverney  declared  Beaumarchais  free  of  financial  obligation 
towards  him,  and  further  acknowledged  a  debt  of  15,000 
francs  payable  at  any  time  agreeable  to  his  partner,  and, 
lastly,  undertook  to  lend  him  the  sum  of  75,000  francs  for 
eight  years  without  interest.  What  particular  services 
Beaumarchais  had  rendered  for  this  last  generous  accom- 
modation we  do  not  know.  This  document,  dated  the 
ist  April,  1770,  is  on  a  folio  sheet,  in  the  handwriting 
of  Beaumarchais  throughout,  bearing  his  signature  on  the 
right  at  the  bottom  of  the  third  page,  and  that  of  Duverney 
with  the  date  on  the  left. 

The  transaction  was  kept  secret  from  the  prospective 
heir,  as  he  did  not  approve  of  the  relations  with   Beau- 

82 


Beaumarchais  at  Law 

maxchais,  and  kept  the  old  man  virtually  a  prisoner  in 
his  own  house. 

On  the  17th  July,  1770,  before  the  two  last  clauses  of 
the  agreement  could  be  carried  out,  Paris  Duverney  died, 
at  eighty-seven  years  of  age,  leaving  his  entire  fortune  of 
about  a  million  and  a  half  francs  to  his  grand-nephew, 
the  Comte  de  la  Blache,  who  through  his  influence  had 
recently  been  made  Brigadier-General. 

Unfortunately  for  Beaumarchais,  the  Comte  could  not 
bear  him,  and  was  known  to  have  said  in  society  :  "  I  hate 
that  man  just  as  a  lover  loves  his  mistress."  There  were, 
doubtless,  several  reasons  for  this  disUke,  quite  apart  from 
a  natural  antipathy.  When  Beaumarchais  had  power 
he  hked  to  use  it,  and  success  tended  to  make  him  arrogant 
with  his  rivals.  Then,  rightly  or  wrongly,  he  had  acquired 
a  rather  doubtful  financial  reputation  among  a  large  circle 
of  people,  without  anybody  being  able  to  point  to  any 
definitely  dishonest  transaction  in  his  career,  though,  we 
take  it,  they  might  easily  have  found  a  good  deal  of 
indelicacy.  The  Count,  therefore,  viewed  with  jealousy 
and  suspicion  this  man,  who  had  so  much  to  say  in  his 
uncle's  affairs.  Moreover,  Beaumarchais  was  the  intimate 
friend  of  Paris  de  Meyzieu,  a  nephew  of  Duverney's,  who, 
for  some  obscure  reason,  had  been  entirely  overlooked 
by  his  uncle,  although  a  nearer  relative  than  La  Blache, 
and  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  the  success  of  the  foundation 
of  the  MiUtary  College  was  largely  owing  to  his  loyal 
help.  La  Blache  knew  that  Beaumarchais  had  more 
than  once  protested  against  his  uncle's  injustice  to  this 
nephew. 

When  Beaumarchais  heard  of  Duverney's  death,  he 
presented  his  statement  of  the  transactions  between  them, 
and,  in  an  extremely  conciHatory  letter  addressed  to  La 
Blache,  requested  that  the  agreement  might  be  carried 
out.  In  his  curt  and  almost  illiterate  reply,  the  Count 
said  that  he  failed  to  recognize  his  uncle's  signature,  and 
implied  that  the  document  was  false.  Beaumarchais  at 
once  challenged  him  to  bring  an  action  against  him  for 
forgery.  Without  daring  to  take  this  course,  La  Blache 
appealed  to  the  courts  for  the  annulment  of  the  deed, 
and  claimed  that  so  far  from  his  owing  Beaumarchais 
15,000  francs,  the  latter  was  actually  a  debtor  to  his  uncle's 

83        -  6* 


Figaro  :    The  Life  of  Beaumarchais 

estate  to  the  amount  of  139,000  francs.  Taking  advan- 
tage of  the  defects  of  the  law  and  his  own  high  social 
position,  he  pleaded  in  such  a  way  that  unless  his  opponent 
won  the  case,  he  would  in  the  opinion  of  the  world  stand 
convicted  of  forgery.  As  the  Prince  de  Conti  said  :  "  Beau- 
marchais must  either  be  paid  {paye)  or  hanged  (pendu)  "  ; 
to  which  Pierre  Augustin  characteristically  repHed : 
"  With  all  my  heart  ;  but  if  I  win  my  case,  ought  not 
m}^  adversary,  as  cordially,  to  pay  a  little  in  his  person  ?  " 

That  precisely  is  the  weak  point  in  the  Count's  armour, 
and  any  sympathy  we  may  have  had  with  his  not  unnatural 
resentment  against  Beaumarchais  is  discounted  by  the 
disloyal  and  cowardly  way  in  which  he  fought  his  action. 

In  Octobei,  1771,  after  more  than  fifteen  months  of 
legal  quibbhng,  and  of  course  ruinous  expenses,  the  courts 
pronounced  in  favour  of  Beaumarchais.  On  the  22nd 
February  following,  the  case  was  dismissed,  and  on  the 
14th  March  an  order  was  made  to  execute  the  deed. 

The  Count  now  appealed  to  the  Grand  Chamber  against 
this  sentence.  His  decision  left  Beaumarchais  perfectly 
calm  and  confident,  as,  indeed,  he  had  every  reason  to  be, 
for  even  to  the  most  prejudiced  mind  it  must  have  appeared 
very  improbable  that  (rich  as  he  then  was,  both  in  his  own 
right  and  in  the  fortune  of  his  wealthy  wife,  who  was  still 
alive),  he  should  be  so  foolish  as  to  risk  utter  ruin  and  even 
his  life  itself,  by  forging  a  document  in  the  hope  of  extract- 
ing 15,000  francs  from  Duverney's  heir.  Moreover,  he 
was  occupied  with  other  things,  and  especially  with  the 
preparation  of  The  Barber  of  Seville,  which  he  had  for 
some  months  past  been  writing  by  way  of  relaxation. 

"  I  love  the  theatre,"  he  declared  at  this  time  to  Gudin, 
"  to  the  verge  of  folly  ;  I  again  ardently  took  up  the  idea 
which  had  become  almost  extinguished,  since  I  had  several 
times  abandoned  it,  of  devoting  myself  entirely  to  the 
drama."* 

The  play,  in  its  earlier  form  of  a  vaudeville,  had  already 
been  perforrned  privately  at  the  house  of  his  friend,  Le 
Normand  d'Etioles.  The  official  permission  to  produce 
the  comedy  at  the  Theatre  Frangais  was  signed  by  M.  de 
Sartine  on  the  13th  February,  1773,  and  Beaumarchais  at 
once  threw  himself  enthusiastically  into  the  rehearsals,  with 

♦  Gudin,  p.  247. 
84 


Beaumarchais  at  Law 

a    view    to    its    presentation    during     the     approaching 
carnival. 

All  was  going  well  when,  with  dramatic  suddenness, 
he  became  involved  in  a  strange  and  tragi-comical  adven- 
ture, which  still  further  compHcated  his  affairs,  indefinitely 
delayed  the  production  of  his  play,  and  helped  not  a 
little  in  the  loss  of  his  case  which  was  still  pending. 


85 


CHAPTER  XI 

BBAUMARCHAIS,   THE   MAD   DUKE,   AND   THE   DEMI- 
MONDAINE 

IN  June,  1770,  Mile.  Menard,  a  young  and  pretty- 
singer,  made  her  first  appearance  at  the  Comedie 
Italienne  as  an  understudy  to  Mme.  La  Ruette.  She  greatly 
pleased  the  general  public,  especially  in  the  part  of  Louise 
in  Sedaine's  Deserteur,  and  won  the  enthusiastic  praise 
of  many  well-known  authors,  poets  and  musicians.  Her 
singing  and  acting,  however,  were  very  unequal  and  the 
opinion  of  connoisseurs  was  a  good  deal  divided  as  to  her 
merits.  Moreover,  she  failed  to  find  the  key  to  the  good 
graces  of  the  Lord  Chamberlain,  the  Due  de  Richeheu, 
who  evidently  thought  "  he  knew  better  than  the  pubhc 
themselves  what  would  give  them  pleasure  for  their 
money,''*  and  he  obstinately  refused  to  allow  her  to  be 
received  into  the  state  theatre  on  trial. 

Mile.  Menard  was  a  fresh  and  piquante  Httle  actress, 
with  a  moderately  good  voice,  which  had  been  badly  trained 
and  was  scarcely  worthy  of  her  natural  acting  and  fine 
elocution.  In  appearance  she  was  a  fine  girl  rather  than 
an  elegant  woman,  and  the  beauty  of  her  arms  was  greatly 
extolled  by  experts. 

Even  Grimm  and  La  Harpe,  who  have  both  some  rather 
unkind  things  to  say  of  her  person  and  ability,  agree  that 
she  ought  to  have  been  received.  It  was  said  that  she 
was  once  a  flower-girl,  but,  being  ambitious,  she  bought 
a  copy  of  Restaut's  "  Grammar  "  and  set  herself  to  study 
the  French  language  and  pronunciation,  and  after  a  hard 
struggle  secured  an  engagement  for  a  minor  part  in  a 
Parisian  theatre.     During  her  first  performances,  she  called 

♦  See  Grimm.     Corrtspondanc$  littSraire,  Juin,  1770. 
86 


Beaumarchais,  Mad  Duke,  and  Demi-Mondaine 

on  every  artist  and  writer  of  repute  to  ask  his  advice 
and  flattered  him  by  following  it  with  zeal  and  docility. 

At  the  period  we  have  now  reached  in  this  narrative, 
the  Due  de  Chaulnes  was  the  protector  of  her  charms, 
and  had  just  commissioned  Greuze  to  paint  her  portrait, 
"  so  that,"  as  Grimm  says,  "  if  we  do  not  succeed  in 
keeping  her  on  the  stage,  we  shall  at  least  have  an  oppor- 
tunity of  seeing  her  at  the  next  Salon  "* 

The  protection  of  the  Due  de  Chaulnes  having  placed 
an  insurmountable  obstacle  in  the  way  of  her  being  pro- 
tected by  the  Due  de  Richelieu,  who  was  an  egoist  in  love, 
Mile.  Menard  found  herself  compelled  to  renounce  her 
career  as  an  actress,  so  she  set  up  a  salon  which  was 
attended  by  Marmontel,  Sedaine,  Gretry,  Rulhieres,  Cham- 
fort,  Suard,  and  many  noblemen  introduced  by  the  Due, 
who  was  proud  of  his  conquest. 

The  Due  de  Chaulnes  was  the  last  representative  of 
the  younger  branch  of  the  house  of  Luynes.  He  was 
thirty  years  old  and  was  already  famous  for  the  eccentricity 
and  violence  of  his  character.  He  had  a  powerful  but 
undisciphned  mind,  much  wit  but  no  judgment,  pride 
without  dignity.  Eager  in  the  pursuit  of  knowledge,  he 
was  yet  more  ardent  in  the  pursuit  of  pleasure.  Of  prodi- 
gious bodily  strength,  his  reason  was  frequently  over- 
clouded by  fits  of  uncontrollable  passion,  during  which 
he  conducted  himself  "  like  a  drunken  savage,  not  to  say  a 
ferocious  beast."  f  These  outbursts  had  often  got  him 
into  trouble  with  the  authorities,  and  he  had  recently 
been  banished  from  the  kingdom  for  five  years.  He  spent 
his  exile  in  the  study  of  chemistry,  in  which  he  had  made 
several  discoveries,  and  in  a  scientific  expedition  to  Egypt, 
where  he  had  lived  among  the  Bedouin.  He  had  brought 
back  from  his  travels  many  natural  history  specimens, 
and  an  ape,  whose  existence  he  delighted  to  make  a  burden 
to  him. 

Such  was  the  man  into  whose  hands  Mile.  Menard  had 
committed  her  life  and  happiness.  His  jealousy,  un- 
faithfulness and  brutality  had  already  extinguished  what- 
ever affection  she  may  have  had  for  him,  and  fear  alone 
prevented  her  from  leaving  him,  when  the  Due  suddenly 

♦  Grimm.     Correspon dance  littSraire,  Juin,  1770. 
t  See  Gudin  de  la  Brenellerie,  Compte  rendu,  nth  February,  1773. 

87 


Figaro  :    The  Life  of  Beaumarchais 

developed  an  intimate  friendship  with  Beaumarchais,  and 
straightway  had  the  temerity  to  introduce  him  to  his 
mistress. 

Under  the  assiduous  attentions  of  the  newcomer,  Mile. 
M6nard  soon  began  to  draw  comparisons — and  the  Due 
to  make  deductions  :  his  friendship  gave  place  to  furious 
jealousy. 

In  her  terror,  Mile,  begged  Beaumarchais  to  discontinue 
his  visits.  But  the  Due's  conduct  went  from  bad  to 
worse,  and  at  last,  in  her  despair,  she  sought  refuge  in  a 
convent. 

After  some  weeks  of  absence,  she  returned  to  her 
house  and  invited  Beaumarchais  to  come  and  see  her 
again. 

Before  accepting  her  invitation,  Beaumarchais  thought 
it  proper  to  write  to  her  protector  as  follows  : 

"  M.  LE  Due, 

"  Madame  Menard  advises  me  that  she  has  returned 
to  her  house  and  invites  me,  among  her  other  friends, 
to  visit  her  whenever  I  care  to  do  so.  I  considered  that 
the  reason  which  caused  her  to  fly  had  ceased.  She  gives 
me  to  understand  that  she  is  free,  and  I  offer  you  both  my 
sincere  congratulations.  So  the  force  of  circumstances 
has  accomplished  what  my  representations  failed  to  do  ; 
you  have  ceased  to  torment  her  ;  I  am  delighted  for  both 
your  sakes.  I  had  almost  said  for  the  sake  of  all  three 
of  us,  if  I  had  not  resolved  to  set  myself  aside  entirely 
in  everything  concerning  the  interests  of  this  unhappy 
woman.  I  know  what  pecuniary  efforts  you  have  made 
to  get  her  again  into  your  power  and  with  what  nobility 
she  has  crowned  the  disinterestedness  of  six  years  by 
returning  to  M.  de  Genlis  the  money  you  had  borrowed 
from  him  to  offer  to  her.  What  upright  heart  would  not 
warm  towards  her  for  such  conduct  ?  As  for  me,  whose 
offers  of  service  she  has  constantly  refused,  I  consider 
myself  honoured,  if  not  in  the  eyes  of  the  world,  at  least 
in  my  own,  that  she  should  number  me  among  the  most 
devoted  of  her  friends.  Ah  !  M.  le  Due,  such  generous 
hearts  are  not  kept  by  threats,  blows  or  money  !  Pardon 
me  if  I  venture  on  such  reflections  :  they  are  not  un- 
necessary to  the  end  I  have  in  view  in  writing  to  you.     In 

88 


BeautnarchaiSf  Mad  Duke,  and  Demi-Mondaine 

speaking  to  you  of  Mme.  Menard,  I  forget  my  personal 
grievances,  I  forget  that  after  having  warned  you  in 
every  way,  after  seeing  myself  embraced  and  made  much 
of  by  you,  both  at  your  house  and  mine,  on  account  of  the 
sacrifices  which  my  attachment  to  you  alone  led  me  to 
make  ;*  that,  after  you  had  complained  to  me  of  her 
in  the  most  injurious  terms,  you  suddenly  and  without 
any  occasion,  changed  your  tone  and  conduct  and  told  her 
things  a  hundred  times  worse  about  me.  I  also  pass  over 
in  silence  the  horrible  scene  you  made  before  her — dis- 
gusting between  two  men — in  which  you  so  far  forgot 
yourself  as  to  reproach  me  with  being  the  son  of  a  watch- 
maker— I,  who  honour  my  parents  even  before  those  who 
beheve  they  have  the  right  to  outrage  their  own.f  You 
must  feel,  M.  le  Due,  the  advantage  which  our  respective 
positions  gave  me  at  that  moment  over  you  ;  and,  if  it 
were  not  for  the  unmerited  anger  which  has  led  you  astray 
ever  since,  you  would  certainly  give  me  credit  for  the 
moderation  with  which  I  rebutted  the  insults  of  him 
whom  I  have  always  honoured  and  loved  with  all  my  heart  ; 
but,  if  even  my  respect  for  you  cannot  make  me  go  so 
far  as  to  fear  any  man,  it  is  that  I  happen  to  be  built  that 
way.  Is  that  a  reason  for  bearing  a  grudge  against  me  ? 
On  the  contrary,  ought  not  my  consideration  for  you  in 
every  respect  to  have  in  your  eyes  the  full  price  which 
my  firmness  gives  it  ?  I  said  to  myself  :  '  Some  day  he 
will  be  ashamed  of  the  wrongs  he  has  heaped  upon  me.' 
Do  what  you  will,  you  have  no  more  succeeded  in  having 
a  really  bad  opinion  of  me  than  in  inspiring  your  friend 
with  it.  In  her  own  interest  she  asked  me  not  to  see  her. 
As  no  man  is  dishonoured  by  obeying  a  woman,  I  have 
neither  seen  nor  had  any  direct  communication  with  her 
for  two  months  ;  now  once  more  she  permits  me  to  take 
my  place  among  her  friends.  If,  during  this  time,  you  have 
not  recovered  the  advantages  which  your  neglect  and 
violence  caused  you  to  lose,  you  must  see  that  the  means 
you  employed  were  not  the  right  ones.  Ah  !  believe  me, 
M.  le  Due,  abandon  a  mistaken  course  which  has  already 
caused  you  so  many  vexations  !  I  have  never  sought  to 
diminish    the    tenderness    which    this    generous    woman 

*  Beaumarchais  had  lent  him  a  considerable  sum  of  money. 

t  A  reference  to  the  Due's  scandalous  lawsuit  against  his  parents. 


Figaro  :    The  Life  of  Beaumarchais 

has  bestowed  upon  you  :  she  would  have  despised  me  if 
I  had  attempted  it.  The  only  enemy  you  have  had  with 
her  is  yourself.  The  wrong  which  your  late  violence  did 
you  points  out  the  way  to  replace  yourself  at  the  head 
of  her  true  friends.  .  .  .  Instead  of  the  hellish  life  that  we 
led  her,  let  us  all  join  together  to  procure  her  a  quiet  and 
happy  existence.  Remember,  all  I  have  had  the  honour 
of  saying  to  you  on  this  subject,  and  because  of  it,  restore 
your  friendship  to  him  whom  you  cannot  deprive  of  your 
esteem. 

"  If  this  letter  does  not  open  your  eyes,  I  shall  at 
least  feel  that  I  have  accomplished  all  my  duties  towards 
the  friend  whom  I  have  not  offended,  whose  outrages  I 
have  forgotten,  and  to  whom  I  come  for  the  last  time, 
vowing  that  should  this  step  prove  useless,  I  shall  bear 
myself  towards  you  with  the  coldness,  hardness  and 
firmness  becoming  to  a  nobleman  in  whose  character 
one  has  been  very  badly  mistaken." 

The  Due  left  this  letter  unanswered,  and  Beaumarchais 
renewed  his  visits  to  Mile.  Menard.  For  some  weeks 
nothing  unusual  happened,  but  on  Thursday,  nth 
February,  1773,  at  eleven  o'clock  in  the  morning,  Paul 
Philippe  Gudin,  the  inseparable  friend  of  Beaumarchais, 
called  to  pay  his  respects  to  Mile.  There  were  present 
in  her  room,  a  woman  companion,  the  chambermaid,  and 
Mile.  M6nard's  little  daughter  by  the  Due  de  Chaulnes. 
After  gently  reproaching  the  visitor  for  not  having  been 
to  see  her  for  so  long,  she  invited  him  to  take  a  chair  at  her 
bedside,  and  suddenly  burst  into  tears,  bitterly  com- 
plaining of  her  sufferings  through  the  Due's  brutality.  At 
this  moment  he  entered  the  room.  Gudin  rose,  bowed, 
and  gave  up  his  chair. 

"  I  am  crying,"  she  sobbed,  "  because  I  am  unhappy, 
and  I  beg  M.  Gudin  to  ask  M.  de  Beaumarchais  to  refute 
the  ridiculous  charges  made  against  him." 

"  What  is  the  use,"  retorted  the  Due,  "  of  a  rascal  like 
Beaumarchais  attempting  to  justify  himself  ?  " 

"  He  is  not  a  rascal,"   she  flashed,   "he  is  a  man  of 
honour." 

The  Due  trembled  with  rage. 

"  Ah  !  "  he  cried,  "  you  are  in  love  with  him  and  are 
90 


Beaumarchais,  Mad  Duke,  and  Demi-Mondaine 

determined  to  humiliate  me  1  I  declare  to  you  that  I 
am  going  to  fight  him  !  "  He  looked  like  a  madman  and 
terrified  all  present.  Mile.  Menard  sprang  out  of  bed  and, 
with  Gudin's  assistance,  tried  to  detain  him  ;  but  easily 
shaking  them  off,  the  Due  dashed  downstairs  and  out  of 
the  house. 

Leaving  by  another  door,  Gudin  ran  to  warn  Beau- 
marchais.  As  he  reached  the  Rue  Dauphine,  he  met 
him  in  his  carriage.  Gudin  seized  the  reins  and  stopped 
the  horses.  Beaumarchais  looked  out  of  the  window 
to  see  what  had  happened. 

**  The  Due  is  looking  for  you  to  kill  you  !  "  cried  Gudin. 

**  Is  that  so  ?  "  coolly  answered  Beaumarchais.  "  Well, 
the  only  thing  he  is  likely  to  kill  is  the  flea  he  has  in  his 
ear  !  " 

Thereupon,  to  the  dismay  of  his  friend,  he  drove  off 
to  carry  out  his  duties  as  Lieut. -General  des  Chasses  aux 
Bailliages  et  Capitainerie  de  la  Varenne  du  Louvre. 

Gudin  turned  towards  home.  As  he  reached  the  steps 
of  the  Pont  Neuf,  he  felt  himself  pulled  violently  back- 
wards by  his  coat-tail,  and  fell  heavily  into  the  arms  of 
the  Due  de  Chaulnes,  who,  in  spite  of  his  resistance,  "carried 
him  off  like  a  bird  of  prey  "  and  flung  him  into  a  hackney 
carriage  which  was  waiting  for  him,  shouting  to  the  coach- 
man to  drive  with  all  speed  to  the  Rue  de  Conde. 

"  What  right  have  you,"  cried  the  indignant  Gudin, 
"  who  are  always  talking  about  liberty,  to  violate  mine  ?  " 
"  The  right  of  the  stronger !  Either  you  will  find 
Beaumarchais  for  me,  or  .  .  ." 

"  M.  le  Due,  I  am  unarmed.  You  surely  do  not  intend 
to  murder  me  !  " 

"  No,  I  am  going  to  kill  only  this  fellow  Beaumarchais, 
and  when  I  have  plunged  my  sword  into  his  body  and 
torn  his  heart  out  with  my  teeth,  the  Menard  woman 
can  go  to  the  devil  in  her  own  way." 

"  I  do  not  know  where  M.  de  Beaumarchais  is,"  replied 
Gudin,  "and  even  if  I  did  know,  I  certainly  would  not 
tell  you  in  your  present  state  of  mind." 

"  If  you  dare  to  resist  me,  I  will  box  your  ears  !  " 
shouted  his  pleasant  companion. 

**  I  warn  you,  M.  le  Due,  that  I  shall  return  the  blow." 

"  What,  you  will  box  my  ears  !  "  yelled  the  nobleman, 

91 


Figaro  :   The  Life  of  Beaumarchais 

and  flinging  himself  on  the  unfortunate  Gudin,  he  tore 
his  hair  and  snatched  off  his  wig,  which  he  brandished  aloft, 
to  the  delight  of  the  passers-by.  He  then  seized  him  by 
the  throat,  and  badly  scratched  his  neck,  ear  and  chin. 

Gudin  shouted  for  the  guard.  The  Due  became 
calmer,  and  Gudin  declared  that  if  Beaumarchais  was 
not  at  home,  he  would  go  immediately  to  the  Commissary 
of  Police  and  lodge  a  complaint  against  his  persecutor. 
Knowing  that  Beaumarchais  was  absent,  and  thinking 
that  his  servants  would  be  sure  not  to  reveal  his  where- 
abouts when  they  saw  the  Due's  excited  condition,  Gudin 
slipped  out  of  the  carriage  directly  the  Due  had  left  it 
to  knock  at  his  rival's  door.  Taking  a  roundabout  way, 
in  case  of  pursuit,  he  hurried  home. 

But  Gudin  had  reckoned  without  the  prestige  of  a  peer 
of  France,  and  the  house  servants  had  not  dared  to  conceal 
from  the  Due  where  their  master  was  to  be  found. 

The  nobleman  rushed  off  to  the  court  where  Beau- 
marchais, in  gorgeous  raiment,  was  sitting  in  judgment  on 
minor  offenders  against  the  game  laws.  Ignoring  the 
ushers  and  attendants,  he  pushed  his  way  straight  to  his 
man  and  demanded  that  he  should  instantly  come  outside 
to  him. 

"  I  cannot  do  that,"  answered  Beaumarchais,  "  the 
public  service  compels  me  to  carry  through  my  duties 
in  a  becoming  manner,"  and  he  politely  begged  the  Due 
to  take  a  seat  until  after  the  audience.  But  the  nobleman 
insisted,  and  Beaumarchais,  fearing  lest  those  present 
should  guess  what  was  the  matter,  suspended  the  sitting 
for  a  few  minutes,  whilst  he  invited  his  adversary  to  join 
him  in  another  room. 

There,  the  Due  told  him  in  the  foulest  language,  that 
he  was  determined  to  kill  him  on  the  spot,  to  tear  out  liis 
heart  and  drink  his  blood,  for  he  was  thirsty. 

"  Oh,  if  that's  aJl,  M.  le  Due,"  repHed  the  imperturbable 
Beaumarchais,  "  you  must  allow  business  to  come  before 
pleasure,"  and  he  moved  towards  the  door  to  return 
to  the  court.  The  Due  stopped  him  and  threatened  to 
tear  his  eyes  out  before  the  whole  assembly  if  he  left 
the  room  without  him. 

"  You  would  only  ruin  yourself,  M.  le  Due,  if  you  should 
be  so  mad  as  to  attempt  it." 

92 


Beaumarchais,  Mad  Duke,  and  Demi-Mondaine 

Beaumarchais  calmly  resumed  his  presidential  chair 
and  the  audience  continued  for  fully  two  hours,  whilst 
the  Due  strode  noisily  to  and  fro,  muttering  imprecations, 
and  from  time  to  time  interrupting  the  proceedings  to 
demand  : 

"  How  much  longer  are  you  going  to  be  ?  " 

At  last  he  drew  his  rival's  deputy,  the  Comte  de  Mar- 
couville,  aside,  and  told  him  that  he  was  waiting  to  fight 
Beaumarchais. 

When  the  court  rose,  Beaumarchais  went  upstairs  to 
change  his  clothes,  and,  rejoining  the  Due,  asked  him 
what  grievances  he  could  have  against  a  man  whom  he 
had  not  seen  for  six  months. 

"  I  want  none  of  your  explanations  :  either  we  fight 
instantly,  or  I  will  make  a  row  before  these  people." 

"  I  suppose  you  can  wait  till  I  get  my  sword,"  answered 
Beaumarchais,  "  I  have  only  a  mourning  sword  in  my 
carriage  :  you  surely  will  not  insist  on  my  defending  myself 
against  you  with  that." 

**  We  are  going  to  call  on  the  Comte  de  La  Tour  du  Pin  ;  he 
will  lend  you  one,  and  I  want  him  to  serve  as  a  witness." 

With  that,  he  sprang  into  his  opponent's  carriage, 
leaving  him  to  scramble  in  after.  On  the  way,  the 
Due  threatened  his  companion  with  all  the  resources  of  a 
voluminous  vocabulary,  and,  infuriated  by  the  coolness  of 
his  replies,  at  last  shook  his  fist  in  his  face.  Beaumarchais 
said  that  if  he  wanted  him  to  fight  he  would  have  to  curb 
his  impatience  until  he  had  got  his  sword,  for  he  had  no 
intention  of  fighting,  in  the  meantime,  like  a  street  rough. 

When  they  reached  the  Comte's  house,  they  met 
him  just  stepping  into  his  carriage.  He  regretted  that 
a  pressing  engagement  made  it  impossible  for  him  to 
undertake  the  service  required  of  him,  at  least  until  four 
o'clock  that  afternoon,  and  he  drove  away. 

The  Due  then  suggested  that  Beaumarchais  should 
accompany  him  to  his  house  and  stay  there  until  the 
appointed  hour.  Beaumarchais  refused  to  trust  himself 
in  a  house  where  his  safety  would  depend  on  the  loyalty 
of  a  man  who  had  so  little  control  over  himself,  and  he 
ordered  the  coachman  to  drive  them  to  his  own  home. 

"  If  you  get  down,"  roared  M.  de  Chaulnes,  "  I  will 
stab  you  on  your  doorstep  !  " 

93 


Figaro  :   The  Life  of  Beaumarchais 

"  Then  you  must  have  that  pleasure,  for  I  intend  to 
go  home  and  wait  until  I  know  exactly  what  you  mean 
to  do." 

These  words  met  with  another  flow  of  bad  language 
from  the  nobleman, 

"  Come,  come,  M.  le  Due,  when  a  man  really  means 
to  fight  he  does  not  talk  so  much.  Do  me  the  honour  of 
dining  with  me,  and  if  by  four  o'clock  I  do  not  succeed 
in  restoring  you  to  your  senses  and  you  still  persist  in 
forcing  upon  me  the  alternatives  of  fighting  you  or  having 
my  face  scratched,  the  sword  must  decide  between  us." 

When  the  carriage  arrived  at  his  house,  Beaumarchais 
got  out,  followed  by  the  Due,  and,  having  let  himself  in, 
summoned  his  servants  and  calmly  ordered  the  dinner. 
His  valet  handed  him  a  letter,  but  before  he  could  open 
it,  his  guest  snatched  it  out  of  his  hand.  Beaumarchais 
tried  to  pass  the  incident  over  as  a  joke,  but  this  only  set 
the  Due  swearing  again.  Seeing  that  his  father  was 
alarmed,  Beaumarchais  ordered  dinner  for  two  to  be  served 
upstairs  in  his  study,  and  led  the  way,  followed  by  his 
footman.  Before  dismissing  the  servant,  he  told  him 
to  fetch  his  sword. 

"  It  is  being  repaired  at  the  maker's,  sir,"  answered 
the  man. 

"  Then  go  and  see  if  it  is  ready  :  if  not,  bring  me  a 
new  one." 

"  I  forbid  3^ou  to  go  out  !  "  cried  the  Due,  "  if  you 
attempt  it,  I'll  kill  you." 

"  So  you  have  changed  your  project  ?  Thank  God  !  " 
exclaimed  Beaumarchais,  "for  I  cannot  fight  without  a 
sword,"  and  he  signed  for  the  valet  to  leave  them. 

He  then  sat  down  to  write.  His  guest  snatched  away 
his  pen.  He  tried  to  talk  him  into  a  better  frame  of 
mind,  but,  without  warning,  the  Due  seized  the  mourning 
sword  which  on  entering  the  room  Beaumarchais  had  laid 
on  his  desk,  and,  grinding  his  teeth  like  a  madman,  advanced 
to  attack  him  with  it,  still  carrying  his  own  sword  at  his 
side. 

"  Ah,  you  coward  !  "  cried  Beaumarchais,  and  he  caught 
his  enemy  in  his  arms  to  prevent  his  using  the  weapon, 
and  gradually  pushed  him  towards  the  bell.  Seeing  his 
intention,  his  assailant  thrust  the  fingers  of  his  free  hand 

94 


Beaumarchais,  Mad  Duke,  and  Deml-Mondaine 

into  his  eyes,  and  inflicted  deep  scratches  in  his  face, 
covering  it  with  blood  ;  but  Beaumarchais  kept  his  hold 
and  at  last  succeeded  in  ringing, 

"  Disarm  this  madman  !  "  he  cried  to  the  servants 
who  came  running  in  answer  to  his  summons.  His  cook, 
a  huge  fellow,  made  for  the  Due  with  a  heavy  piece  of  wood. 

"  Stop  !  "  shouted  his  master,  "  do  not  harm  him,  or 
he  will  accuse  me  of  trying  to  murder  him  in  my  house." 

They  wrenched  the  sword  from  his  hand,  but  he 
instantly  seized  Beaumarchais  by  the  hair,  tearing  a 
handful  from  the  front  of  his  head.  The  pain  caused 
him  to  lose  his  hold  on  his  enemy,  but  he  drove  his  fist 
with  great  force  to  his  face. 

"  Wretch  !  "  roared  the  nobleman,  "  how  dare  you 
strike  a  Due  and  a  peer  of  the  realm  !  " 

In  spite  of  the  seriousness  of  the  situation,  the  in- 
congruity of  the  exclamation  tickled  Pierre  Augustin's 
sense  of  humour,  and  he  had  difficulty  in  restraining  his 
laughter. 

The  Due  now  caught  him  by  the  throat,  and  the  com- 
batants at  length  found  themselves  struggling  at  the 
head  of  the  stairs,  giving  and  returning  blows  with  all 
their  strength.  The  servants  threw  themselves  in  a  body 
between  their  master  and  his  assailant,  but  their  inter- 
ference caused  them  to  overbalance,  and  all  were  pre- 
cipitated in  a  tangled  heap  to  the  bottom  of  the  stair- 
case. 

At  this  moment  there  was  a  knock  at  the  door.  Ex- 
tricating himself,  the  Due  ran  to  open.  He  found  Gudin 
on  the  threshold,  and,  seizing  his  arm,  pulled  him  in,  and 
setting  his  back  to  the  door,  declared  that  he  would  cut 
in  pieces  anybody  who  attempted  to  come  in  or  go  out. 
The  noise  he  made  so  terrified  the  women  that  one  of 
them  rushed  upstairs,  and  throwing  open  a  window, 
shrieked  that  her  master  was  being  murdered.  Gudin, 
alarmed  at  the  sight  of  his  friend  with  his  coat  and  shirt 
torn  to  rags  and  his  face  streaming  blood,  tried  to  lead 
him  upstairs  ;  but  the  Due  would  not  allow  it,  and,  drawing 
his  sword  which  he  still  carried  at  his  side  (for  none  of  the 
servants  had  dared  take  it  from  him  because  of  his  rank), 
made  a  savage  lunge  at  Beaumarchais.  The  latter 
avoided  the  stroke,   and  the  servants  threw  themselves 

05 


Figaro  :   The  Life  of  Beaumarchais 

upon  the  infuriated  nobleman  and  at  length  succeeded 
in  disarming  him  ;  but  not  before  he  had  wounded  the 
valet  in  the  head,  gashed  the  coachman's  nose,  and  pierced 
the  cook's  hand. 

"  You  miserable  coward  !  "  cried  Beaumarchais  ;  "  that 
is  the  second  time  you  have  attacked  an  unarmed  man 
with  your  sword  !  " 

The  Due  now  ran  into  the  kitchen  to  look  for  a  knife, 
but  the  servants  had  already  locked  up  all  the  cutlery. 
Beaumarchais  went  into  his  study  and  armed  himself 
with  a  pair  of  heavy  fire-irons.  On  coming  downstairs 
he  found  his  assailant  seated  alone  in  the  dining-room, 
devouring  the  food  left  on  the  table.  He  had  swallowed  a 
large  plate  of  soup,  several  cutlets  and  two  decanters 
of  water. 

Again  there  was  a  knock  at  the  front  door,  and,  running 
to  open  it,  the  Due  met  the  Commissary  of  Police  Chenu. 
Beaumarchais  explained  the  situation  to  the  magistrate, 
but  his  opponent  interrupted  him  to  say  that  he  had 
arranged  to  fight  him  in  the  presence  of  the  Comte  de 
La  Tour  du  Pin  at  four  o'clock,  and  that  he  found  himself 
unable  to  wait  for  the  appointed  hour. 

"  What  do  you  think  of  this  man,  sir,"  said  Beaumar- 
chais to  Chenu,  "  who  after  making  a  terrible  scene  in  my 
house,  has  the  effrontery  to  divulge  to  a  police  officer 
his  intention  to  violate  the  law,  and  compromises  a  general 
officer  by  naming  him  as  a  witness,  thus  at  a  stroke 
destroying  all  possibility  of  carrying  out  his  project,  which 
this  cowardly  admission  proves  that  he  had  never  seriously 
entertained  ?  " 

At  these  words,  the  madman  again  rushed  at  Beau- 
marchais, who,  upon  the  arrival  of  Chenu,  had  laid  down 
his  fire-irons.  He  defended  himself  as  well  as  possible 
with  his  fists.  The  officer  succeeded  in  separating  the 
combatants,  and  asking  Beaumarchais  to  stay  in  the 
reception  room,  led  the  Due,  who  had  set  his  mind  on 
breaking  the  glass,  into  another  apartment. 

At  this  moment,  the  valet  returned  with  a  new  sword, 
which  he  handed  to  Beaumarchais,  who  hastened  to  explain 
to  the  officer  that  he  had  no  intention  of  fighting  a  duel, 
but  that  he  would  never  go  out  unarmed  in  case  his  aggressor 
should  take  it  into  his  head  to  insult  him  in  public  as 

96 


Beaumarchais,  Mad  Duke,  and  Demi-Mondaine 

he  had  just  done  in  his  house,  when  he  swore  to  dehver  the 
world  of  him. 

The  Due  now  tamely  followed  M.  Chenu  into  the 
adjoining  room,  but  at  once  began  to  tear  his  own  hair 
and  strike  himself  in  the  face  with  his  clenched  fists. 
At  length  the  officer  succeeded  in  calming  him,  and,  after 
coolly  ordering  the  valet,  whom  he  had  wounded,  to  dress 
his  hair,  he  left  the  house  and  went  home,  whilst  his 
victims  went  upstairs  to  dress  their  wounds.* 

Beaumarchais  terminates  his  version  of  this  encounter, 
supplied  to  the  police,  with  these  words  : 

"  In  the  course  of  this  record  I  have  scrupulously 
refrained  from  comment  ;  I  have  narrated  the  facts  simply 
and,  as  far  as  possible,  reproduced  the  exact  words  used, 
having  no  desire  to  deviate  from  the  truth  in  any  par- 
ticular whilst  relating  the  strangest  and  most  revolting 
adventure  that  could  well  happen  to  a  reasonable  man." 

The  Commissary,  in  his  report  to  M.  de  Sartine,  ob- 
viously knows  not  what  to  make  of  the  affair,  but  is 
extremely  circumspect  in  his  references  to  the  Due,  having 
a  lively  sense  of  the  power  and  influence  of  his  family. 

The  deposition  of  Beaumarchais  compares  very 
favourably  both  from  the  point  of  view^  of  frankness  and 
probability  with  that  of  M.  de  Chaulnes. 

After  being  for  over  three  years,  asserts  the  Due,  the 
dupe  of  the  Sieur  de  Beaumarchais,  who  he  thought  to 
be  his  friend,  he  had  strong  reasons  to  keep  him  at  a 
distance.  He  conceals  the  real  cause  of  the  quarrel, 
stating  that  the  trouble  arose  through  certain  calumnies 
which  Beaumarchais  had  spread  concerning  him.  On 
the  matter  being  reported  to  him,  he  went  to  his  libeller's 
house,  accompanied  by  the  Sieur  Gudin,  but  learned 
that  he  was  attending  a  sitting  of  the  Tribunal  of  the 
Capitainerie.  He  immediately  proceeded  to  that  court 
to  demand  an  explanation.  On  the  conclusion  of  the 
audience,  he  drove  home  to  dinner  with  the  Sieur  de 
Beaumarchais,  but  had  no  sooner  entered  the  house 
than  his  companion  grossly  insulted  him,  and  he  was 
compelled,  as  a  man  of  honour,  to  ask  him  to  come  outside 
and  give  him  satisfaction.  Whereupon  the  Sieur  de 
Beaumarchais  struck  him,   and  four  of  his  servants  fell 

*  Gudin,  pp.  80-89. 

97  7 


Figaro  :    The  Life  of  Beaumarchais 

upon  him  and  took  away  his  sword,  whilst  at  the  same 
time  his  assailant  sent  his  sister  to  fetch  the  Commissary 
of  Police.  Even  the  arrival  of  the  magistrate  failed  to 
prevent  this  misguided  man  from  making  the  most  im- 
pudent accusations  against  him.  On  leaving  his  house 
he  went  at  once  to  give  an  account  of  the  affair  to  M.  de 
Sartine,  and  on  the  morrow,  by  his  advice,  to  M.  le  Due 
de  la  Vrilliere.  Returning  from  Versailles,  he  heard  that 
M.  de  Beaumarchais  was  telling  everybody  that  he  had 
refused  his  challenge.  As  it  was  impossible  for  a  man  of 
birth  like  himself  to  cross  swords  with  a  person  hke  the 
Sieur  de  Beaumarchais,  who  was  the  son  of  a  watchmaker, 
he  let  it  be  known  that  he  intended  to  punish  him  for  his 
insolence  in  a  manner  appropriate  to  his  humble  rank. 
In  conclusion,  he  boldly  asserted  that  he  had  never  come 
under  the  notice  of  the  police,  either  in  Paris  or  elsewhere, 
as  a  gambler  or  a  quarrelsome  or  disorderly  person,  "  whilst 
the  reputation  of  M.  de  Beaumarchais  is  not  by  a  long  way 
so  intact,  since,  apart  from  his  notorious  insolence  and 
the  most  extraordinary  rumours  about  him,  he  is  at  this 
moment  undergoing  a  criminal  prosecution  for  forgery." 

M.  de  Chaulnes  knew  perfectly  well  that  this  con- 
cluding paragraph,  and,  indeed  the  greater  part  of  his 
deposition,  was  little  better  than  a  tissue  of  lies,  for  even 
La  Blache  did  not  dare  accuse  Beaumarchais  of  forgery, 
nor  was  it  a  criminal  court  which  was  trying  the  case  ; 
but  such  was  the  damning  effect  of  this  lawsuit,  and  his 
enem.ies'  calumnies  upon  his  reputation,  that  the  Due 
could  make  these  false  charges  with  impunity,  even  before 
sentence  was  pronounced. 

After  the  harrowing  experiences  of  the  day,  we  might 
well  suppose  that  Beaumarchais  would  take  to  his  bed 
for  a  few  days  by  way  of  restoring  his  nerves.  Not  at 
all  !  His  marvellous  vitality,  one  of  the  secrets  of  his 
charm,  enabled  him  to  shed  his  troubles  with  childUke 
facility.  The  same  evening,  he  had  promised  to  visit  one 
of  his  friends  and  read  the  "  Barber  of  Seville "  to  a 
large  company  assembled  at  his  house.  At  the  appointed 
time,  Beaumarchais  arrived,  fresh,  well-groomed,  cheerful 
and  apparently  without  a  care  in  the  world,  his  bruises 
and  scratches  alone  betraying  the  ordeal  from  which  he 

98 


Beaumarchais,  Mad  Duke,  and  Demi-Mondaine 

had  just  emerged.  He  read  his  comedy  with  great  spirit, 
entertained  the  company  with  a  most  amusing  narrative 
of  his  encounter  with  the  Due,  and  spent  much  of  the 
night  in  singing  Spanish  songs  to  his  own  accompaniment 
on  the  harp.* 

The  next  morning  his  father  brought  him  a  sword  he 
himself  had  carried  in  his  youth. 

"  You  people  of  to-day  have  wretched  weapons,"  he 
said  ;  "  but  this  is  a  sound  one,  belonging  to  a  time  when 
there  was  more  fighting  than  nowadays.  Take  it,  and  if 
that  scoundrel  of  a  Due  comes  near  thee,  kill  him  like  a 
mad  dog." 

The  adventure  had  made  such  a  stir  that  the  matter 
was  taken  up  by  the  Tribunal  of  the  Marshals  of  France, 
the  judges  in  affairs  of  honour  among  gentlemen. 

In  the  meantime,  the  Due  de  la  Vrilliere  had  taken 
upon  himself  to  order  Beaumarchais  to  retire  into  the 
country  for  a  time  ;  but  on  his  vigorous  protests  against 
this  irregular  sentence,  which  would  gravely  compromise 
his  honour  in  relation  to  M.  de  Chaulnes,  he  was  allowed  to 
consider  himself  under  arrest  in  his  own  house,  until  the 
affair  had  been  reported  to  the  King. 

Both  combatants  were  now  summoned  to  appear 
before  the  Tribunal  of  the  Marshals.  Beaumarchais  was 
able  to  prove  that  the  only  grievance  the  Due  de  Chaulnes 
could  possibly  have  against  him  was  the  favour  bestowed 
upon  him  by  a  lady  whose  affection  that  nobleman  had 
not  been  clever  enough  to  retain.  This  was,  doubtless, 
very  annoying  to  the  Due  ;  but  such  things  will  happen. 
The  court  decided  against  M.  de  Chaulnes,  and  on  the 
19th  February  he  was  arrested  and  imprisoned  in  the 
Chateau  de  Vincennes.  The  Tribunal  having  sent  for 
Beaumarchais  a  second  time,  informed  him  that  he  was 
free. 

Beaumarchais,  however,  knew  the  world  in  which  he 
Hved  too  well  to  feel  quite  easy.  He,  therefore,  called 
upon  the  Due  de  la  Vrilhere  to  obtain  his  assurance  that 
he  really  could  consider  himself  at  hberty.  This  courtier 
being  out,  he  went  straight  to  M.  de  Sartine,  and  asked  him 
the  same  question.  The  chief  of  police  soon  set  his  mind 
at  rest  by  stating  that  he  had  entirely  cleared  himself. 

*  Gudin,  p.  89. 

99  7* 


Figaro  ;   The  Life  of  Beaumarchais 

Beaumarchais   thereupon   ventured   out   into   the   streets 
again. 

But  the  Due  de  la  VrilHere,  annoyed  that  the  Tribunal 
had  revoked  in  the  King's  name,  orders  which  he  had 
given  by  the  same  authority,  thought  of  an  ingenious  way 
of  rebuking  the  officiousness  of  these  magistrates  :  he 
caused  Beaumarchais  to  be  arrested  and  conveyed  to  Fors 
TEveque. 


100 


CHAPTER  XII 

BEAUMARCHAIS   IN   PRISON 

ALTHOUGH  it  was  generally  admitted  that  Beau- 
marchais  was  entirely  blameless  in  this  quarrel, 
which  had  cost  him  his  liberty,  few  people  among  the 
general  public  bothered  themselves  about  the  injustice 
which  had  been  meted  out  to  him  :  such  accidents  were 
common  enough  in  those  days,  and  might  have  happened 
to  anybody. 

"  This  very  insolent  individual,"  says  Bachaumont, 
in  describing  the  affair,  "  who  fears  nothing,  is  not  liked, 
and  although  nobody  appears  to  have  anything  with  which 
to  reproach  him  in  this  brawl,  less  pity  is  felt  for  him 
than  for  another  in  the  vexations  he  has  met  with." 

But  he  was  not  wholly  without  sympathizers.  During 
the  first  weeks  of  his  imprisonment,  he  was  greatly  touched 
by  receiving  a  thoughtful  letter  enclosing  a  purse  fr9m  the 
six-years-old  son  of  his  friend  M.  Lenormand  d'Etioles, 
by  his  second  wife.  The  little  boy  was  very  fond  of  Beau- 
marchais,  and  was  much  distressed  at  hearing  of  his 
friend's  misfortune. 

"  Sir,"  he  says,  writing  from  Neuilly  on  the  2nd  March, 
"  I  am  sending  you  my  purse,  because  one  is  always 
unhappy  in  prison.  I  am  very  sorry  that  you  are  in  prison. 
Every  morning  and  every  evening  I  say  an  Ave  Maria 
for  you.  I  have  the  honour  of  being,  sir,  your  very  humble 
and  very  obedient  servant,  Constant." 

Beaumarchais  wrote  thanking  the  mother  for  allowing 
his  little  friend  to  give  him  this  mark  of  generosity  and 
attachment,  and  congratulated  her  on  having  inculcated 
such  thoughtfulness  for  others  in  a  child  so  young.  He 
begged  her  to  reward  little  Constant  in  such  a  way  that 
he  should  not  conclude  that  every  beneficent  act  receives 
its  recompense,  and  ended  by  saying  : 


Figaro  :    The  Life  of  Beaumarchais 

"  This  letter  and  purse  have  made  me  feel  as  joyful 
as  a  child.  Happy  parents  to  have  a  son  capable,  at  six 
years  of  age,  of  such  an  action  !  I  also  had  a  son,  but  I 
have  him  no  longer  !  And  yours  already  gives  you  such 
pleasure  !  I  share  it  with  all  my  heart,  and  beg  you  to 
continue  to  love  a  httle  him  whose  misfortune  gave  rise 
to  this  charming  thought  on  the  part  of  our  Httle  Constant." 

To  the  Httle  boy  himself  he  wrote  : 

"  My  dear  little  Constant,— I  received  with  much 
gratitude  your  letter  and  the  purse  you  enclosed  with  it. 
I  have  carefully  shared  out  their  contents  among  my 
fellow-prisoners,  according  to  their  several  needs  and  my 
own,  keeping  for  your  friend  Beaumarchais  the  better  part 

I  'mean  the  prayers,   the    Ave    Maria,   of  which  most 

assuredly  I  have  great  need,  whilst  distributing  among 
poor  people,  who  are  suffering,  all  the  money  contained 
in  your  purse.  Thus,  in  your  desire  to  obHge  a  single 
man,  you  have  won  the  gratitude  of  several ;  that  is 
the  usual  result  of  all  good  actions  such  as  yours. 

"  Good-bye,  little  friend  Constant. 

"  Beaumarchais." 

Writing  to  Gudin  on  the  first  day  of  his  imprisonment, 
Beaumarchais  describes  his  situation  with  some  humour, 
but  cannot  tell  his  friend  whether  he  owes  the  Httle  atten- 
tion that  has  been  paid  him  to  the  de  Chaulnes  family, 
the  Minister,  or  the  Dues  and  Peers  as  a  body.  What 
can  he  do  ?  for  "  to  be  in  the  right  a  man  invariably  puts 
himself  in  the  wrong  in  the  eyes  of  the  powerful,  who  are 
always  quick  to  punish  but  never  to  judge." 

Meanwhile  MUe.  Menard,  alarmed  at  the  Due's  fresh 
outburst,  sought  the  protection  of  M.  de  Sartine,  who  did 
his  best  to  calm  her  fears.  In  thanking  him,  the  distressed 
lady  said  she  had  determined  once  more  to  seek  refuge  in 
a  convent,  although  she  was  careful  to  make  him  understand 
that  this  was  a  temporary  arrangement— she  had  no  desire 
for  him  to  exaggerate  the  extent  of  her  vocation.  She 
begged  him  to  make  her  retreat  inaccessible  to  the  violent 
man  from  whose  fury  she  had  fled.  She  trusted  him  so 
implicitly  that  she  had  already  used  his  authority  to  place 


Beaumarchais  in  Prison 

her  daughter  in  the  Convent  of  the  Presentation.  "  Deign, 
sir,"  she  continued,  "  to  extend  to  the  mother  the  protec- 
tion which  you  have  already  exerted  in  favour  of  her 
daughter.  After  God,  we  put  all  our  trust  in  you — a  trust 
which  is  only  equalled  by  the  respectful  sentiments  with 
which  I  have  the  honour  of  being,  sir,  your  very  humble 
and  very  obedient  servant.  ..." 

On  the  following  day  M.  de  Sartine  directed  the  Abbe 
Dugue,  who  had  already  befriended  the  hapless  lady, 
to  find  a  convent  for  her.  The  worthy  priest  was  much 
perturbed  at  the  dehcate  and  distasteful  mission  which 
had  been  confided  to  him.  Nevertheless,  he  acted  with 
energy  and  expedition,  and  the  same  evening  was  able  to 
report  progress.  First  of  all,  he  had  tried  to  persuade  the 
prioress  of  the  Convent  of  the  Presentation  to  take  the 
mother  as  well  as  the  daughter  ;  but  in  spite  of  this  lady's 
good  will,  the  house  was  already  full,  and  it  was  impossible 
for  her  to  receive  any  more  guests.  He  next  went  to  the 
Cordelieres  in  the  Rue  de  I'Oursine,  and  after  man)/  ques- 
tions, which  he  "  was  compelled  to  evade,"  his  request 
was  granted.  At  eleven  o'clock  that  morning  he  had  had 
the  satisfaction  of  seeing  Mile.  Menard  duty  installed. 
He  was  extremely  ill  at  ease  in  being  innocently  involved 
in  this  "  catastrophe."  He  would  be  greatly  reassured 
if  M.  de  Sartine  could,  at  least  for  the  time  being,  make 
it  impossible  for  the  Due  and  M.  de  Beaumarchais  and 
their  agents  to  come  near  this  retreat  ;  for,  in  view  of  the 
difficulties  he  had  experienced  in  finding  a  place  of  refuge 
for  the  lady,  he  had  been  obhged  to  pass  her  off  as  his 
relative,  and  he  really  did  not  know  what  these  nuns 
would  say  if,  by  the  violence  or  imprudence  of  either  of 
the  interested  parties,  it  should  leak  out  that  it  was  a  kept 
woman  whom  he  had  been  at  such  pains  to  introduce  into 
their  house  ;  "  whilst  if  only  these  rash  rivals  would  leave 
her  in  peace,  her  sweet  face  and  character  would  plead 
strongly  in  favour  of  this  afflicted  recluse,  and  spare  me 
the  disgrace  of  appearing  to  be  not  only  a  liar,  but  guilty 
of  most  irregular  conduct.  I  left  the  ladies  very  well 
disposed  towards  their  new  boarder  ;  but,  I  repeat,  what 
a  disgrace  it  would  be  for  her  and  for  me,  who  have  put 
myself  so  much  forward  in  this  affair,  if  jealousy  or  love, 

X03 


Figaro  :   The  Life  of  Beaumarchais 

equally  out  of  place,  should  go  so  far  as  to  exhale  their 
scandalous  transports  or  their  unedifying  (m&sedifiants) 
sighs  in  her  parlour." 

But  Mile.  Menard's  vocation  for  the  religious  Ufe  was 
of  the  shghtest,  and  after  a  fortnight's  retirement,  finding 
that  her  persecutor  was  still  safely  under  lock  and  key,  she 
returned  to  her  home  as  precipitately  as  she  had  left  it. 

In  spite  of  the  remonstrances  of  Beaumarchais,  she 
could  not  be  persuaded  to  go  back  to  the  convent,  but 
immediately  set  herself  energetically  to  procuring  his 
release. 

Profiting  by  the  imprisonment  of  his  opponent.  La 
Blache  worked  unremittingly  to  blacken  his  character 
in  the  eyes  of  the  judges.  Beaumarchais  wrote  letter  after 
letter  to  the  Due  de  la  Vrilliere,  complaining  bitterly  of  his 
unjust  treatment.  M.  de  Sartine,  who  was  a  man  of 
feeling,  undertook  to  solicit  for  him  permission  to  go 
out  for  a  few  hours  each  day  to  prepare  his  case,  visit  the 
judges,  and  to  attend  to  other  urgent  business  ;  but  the 
minister  replied  :  "  The  man  is  far  too  insolent  ;  let  him 
instruct  his  attorney  to  conduct  his  case." 

But,  as  Beaumarchais  pointed  out  to  M.  de  Sartine, 
M.  de  la  Vrilliere  knew  as  well  as  he  did  that  the  course 
he  recommended  was  forbidden  by  law. 

"  Good  heavens  !  "  he  cried,  "  cannot  they  ruin  an 
innocent  man  without  making  a  laughing-stock  of  him  ? 
Sir,  I  have  been  grievously  insulted,  and  they  deny  me 
justice  because  my  adversary  is  a  nobleman.  I  have  been 
put  in  prison  and  kept  there  because  I  have  been  insulted 
by  a  man  of  quality." 

M.  de  Sartine  agreed  that  all  this  was  true,  but,  never- 
theless, advised  him  to  alter  his  tone,  and  bow  to  the 
inevitable  by  asking,  not  for  justice,  but  for  pardon. 

At  last  Beaumarchais,  very  much  against  the  grain, 
wrote  a  humble  letter — almost  as  humble  as  that  which 
M.  de  Chaulnes  had  already  written  on  his  own  behalf — 
to  the  minister,  flattering  his  petty  vanity,  and  at  once 
secured  his  permission  to  go  out  during  the  day,  attended 
by  a  police  officer,  on  condition  that  he  returned  to  the 
prison  for  his  meals  and  to  sleep. 

Beaumarchais  spent  his  hours  of  liberty  in  attempting 
to    counteract    the    machinations    of   his    opponent.     He 

104 


Beaumarchais  in  Prison 

sought  interviews  with  his  judges,  as  was  then  the  custom 
among  Htigants,  and  of  which  the  Comte  de  la  Blache 
had  already  taken  full  advantage.  But  do  what  he  might, 
the  Comte  was  too  strong  for  him,  and  during  his  imprison- 
ment had  succeeded  only  too  well  in  inspiring  judges  and 
pubHc  alike  with  his  own  malignity. 

On  the  report  of  Counsellor  Goezman,  the  Parlement 
overruled  the  decision  of  the  First  Tribunal,  setting  aside 
the  agreement  between  Beaumarchais  and  Paris  Duverney 
as  invaUd.  Thus  Beaumarchais  was  indirectly  declared 
guilty  of  forgery,  without  any  formal  charge  being  made 
against  him.  This  iniquitous  judgment  gravely  com- 
promised not  only  his  honour  but  his  fortune,  for  it  con- 
demned him  to  pay  56,300  francs,  with  five  years'  interest, 
and  all  the  costs  of  the  proceedings.  Nor  was  this  all, 
for  the  success  of  La  Blache  encouraged  other  claimants, 
including  the  sister  and  other  relatives  of  his  first  wife, 
as  we  have  already  related  in  a  former  chapter.  For  a 
moment,  even  his  courageous  heart  faltered  under  these 
blows. 

On  the  9th  April  we  find  him  pouring  out  his  troubles 
to  the  sympathetic  M.  de  Sartine  : 

"I  am  at  the  end  of  my  courage.  .  .  .  My  credit  is 
destroyed,  my  affairs  are  in  ruin,  my  family,  of  whom  I  am 
the  sole  support,  are  in  despair.  Sir,  I  have  all  my  life 
tried  unostentatiously  to  do  good,  yet  I  have  always  been 
defamed  by  enemies.  If  you  knew  me  in  my  family  circle, 
you  would  recognize  me  as  a  good  son,  a  good  brother,  a 
good  husband,  and  a  good  citizen,  earning  only  benedic- 
tions from  those  around  me,  whilst  I  am  shamelessly  calum- 
niated by  those  who  do  not  know  me.  Is  there  no  limit 
to  the  vengeance  exacted  of  me  for  this  wretched  de 
Chaulnes  affair  ?  My  imprisonment  has  cost  me  a  good 
hundred  thousand  francs.  In  form  and  substance  this 
wicked  sentence  makes  me  shudder,  and  whilst  I  am  kept 
in  this  horrible  prison  I  have  no  chance  of  retrieving  my 
losses.  I  have  strength  to  bear  my  own  troubles,  but  none 
to  bear  the  sight  of  my  worthy  father's  tears — he  who  at 
seventy-five  years  of  age  is  dying  of  grief  at  the  abjection 
into  which  I  have  fallen.  I  have  none  against  the  pain  of 
my  sisters  and  nieces,  whose  future  is  already  over- 
shadowed by  the  fear  of  want  arising  out  of  the  deplorable 

103 


Figaro  :    The  Life  of  Beaumarchais 

state  into  which  my  detention  has  thrown  me  and  my 
affairs.  To-day  all  the  activity  of  my  mind  turns  against 
me  ;  my  situation  is  killing  me  ;  I  am  struggling  against 
an  acute  illness  brought  about  by  sleeplessness  and  loss 
of  appetite.  The  infected  air  of  the  prison  is  destroying 
my  health." 

On  the  8th  May,  after  two  and  a  half  months  of  un- 
justifiable imprisonment,  La  Vrilliere  at  last  restored  him 
to  liberty. 

Suddenly  there  arose  out  of  this  lost  action  another  and 
more  terrible  lawsuit,  which,  like  an  eighteenth-century 
Dreyfus  case,  convulsed  the  whole  country,  and  almost 
cost  Beaumarchais  his  life.  By  dint  of  an  amazing  com- 
bination of  skill,  daring  and  eloquence,  Beaumarchais 
turned  the  threatened  disaster  into  a  triumph  almost 
without  precedent.  This  he  accomplished  by  boldly 
appealing  to  public  opinion  over  the  head  of  the  judges, 
the  Court  and  the  Sovereign  himself,  in  a  series  of  magnifi- 
cent open  letters,  in  which  he  cunningly  associated  his 
cause  with  that  of  the  oppressed  people,  and  incidentally 
attacking  the  corrupt  and  usurping  Maupeou  Parlement 
with  the  deadly  weapons  of  irony  and  ridicule,  succeeded 
in  overthrowing  it.  He  revealed  himself  as  a  great  pub- 
licist, a  master  of  comedy,  and  a  forerunner  of  the  Revolu- 
tion. At  one  stroke  he  became  the  hero  of  the  nation 
and  the  most  talked  of  man  in  Europe. 

"  A  year  ago,"  says  Grimm,  "  he  was  the  most  hated 
man  in  Paris  :  everybody  on  the  word  of  his  neighbour 
thought  him  capable  of  the  greatest  crimes  ;  to-day  every- 
body dotes  upon  him." 


io6 


CHAPTER  XIII 

HOW  "  LOUIS  XV.  OVERTHREW  THE  OLD  PARLEMENT  AND 
FIFTEEN  LOUIS  THE  NEW  " 

IN  1771  the  Chancellor  Maupeou,  who  had  risen  to  power 
by  the  influence  of  Mme.  Du  Barry,  still  further 
ingratiated  himself  with  the  King  by  abolishing  the  Parle- 
ment  de  Paris,  and  exiling  its  members  on  account  of  their 
constant  opposition  to  the  royal  wishes,  setting  in  its  place 
a  council  composed  of  men  whom  he  could  depend  upon 
to  further  his  views.  In  spite  of  many  notorious  abuses 
which  were  allowed  to  subsist  under  the  old  Parlement, 
and  were  adroitly  abolished  in  the  new,  this  violent 
measure  excited  great  indignation  throughout  the  country, 
and  the  new  council  was  derisively  named  the  Parlement 
Maupeou.* 

Among  its  members  was  Louis  Valentin  Goezman,  a 
dissipated  though  learned  Alsatian  jurist,  who  in  1765 
had  established  himself  in  Paris  with  his  young  and  pretty 
second  wife.f  The  pair  were  in  continual  financial  em- 
barrassment caused  not  less  by  the  husband's  pursuit  of 
women  than  by  the  wife's  pursuit  of  pleasure,  and  they  were 
equally  unscrupulous  as  to  the  means  they  employed  to 
gratify  their  tastes  ;  as  Mme.  Goezman  naively  remarked 
in  a  moment  of  expansion  :  "  It  is  impossible  to  live 
honestly  on  what  we  are  paid,  but  we  have  the  art  of  pluck- 
ing the  fowl  without  making  it  cry  out."| 

These  words  were  spoken  in  the  presence  of  several 
people  at  the  house  of  Lejay  the  bookseller,  who  sold  her 
husband's  books,  and  was  probably  one  of  her   favoured 

♦  Recueil  stir  I'Edit  de  1770,  I.,  p.  464. 

t  Huot  (P.).  Goetzmann  et  sa  famille  (1649-1794).  Revue  d' Alsace, 
pp.  7-1 1. 

%  Deposition  of  Lejay.     Archives  nation  ales. 

107 


Figaro  :    The  Life  of  Beaumarchais 

admirers ;  at  any  rate,  she  frequently  obtained  money  from 
him,  quite  apart  from  her  husband's  royalties  ;  in  fact, 
her  rapacity  was  only  exceeded  by  that  of  Mme.  Lejay, 
the  bookseller's  wife,  who,  in  her  turn,  was  the  most 
expensive  of  the  long  line  of  Mirabeau's  mistresses.* 

Goezman  having  been  appointed  judge-advocate  to 
report  on  his  case,  Beaumarchais  had  no  sooner  obtained 
permission  to  leave  his  prison,  than  he  made  several  vain 
attempts  to  secure  an  interview  in  order  to  instruct  the 
judge.  Hearing  of  the  ill-success  attending  these  efforts, 
Lejay,  who  was  a  stranger  to  Beaumarchais,  sent  word  to 
him  by  Bertrand  Dairolles,  a  common  friend,  that  the 
only  way  of  gaining  access  to  Goezman,  and  of  making 
sure  of  his  equity,  was  to  give  a  present  to  his  wife,  and 
suggested  two  hundred  louis  as  an  appropriate  sum. 

Despairing  of  his  case  unless  he  succeeded  in  inter- 
viewing the  judge  beforehand,  and  thinking,  like  Crispin, 
that  "  justice  is  such  a  precious  thing  that  you  cannot  pay 
too  much  for  it,"t  Beaumarchais  borrowed  one  hundred 
louis  from  his  friends,  and  handed  that  sum,  with  a  watch 
ornamented  with  diamonds  of  equal  value,  to  the  book- 
seller, requesting  him  to  pass  them  on  to  the  judge's  wife. 
Mme.  Goezman  accepted  the  present,  but  demanded  a 
further  sum  of  fifteen  louis,  which  she  said  was  intended  for 
her  husband's  secretary.  On  receiving  this  amount,  she  told 
Lejay  that  if  Beaumarchais  lost  his  case,  everything  would 
be  returned  to  him.  The  following  day  Beaumarchais, 
accompanied  by  his  prison  guard,  was  granted  an  inter- 
view with  the  judge.  This  was  on  Friday,  the  3rd  April. 
During  the  brief  conversation,  Goezman  showed,  by  his 
incongruous  observations,  that  he  had  very  little  know- 
ledge of  the  case.  Beaumarchais  told  him  this,  and  he 
replied  that  the  case  was  a  simple  one,  and  he  was  quite 
competent  to  render  an  exact  account  to  the  court  on  the 
following  Monday,  when  it  was  down  for  hearing.  As  he 
spoke,  Beaumarchais  thought  he  detected  an  equivocal 
smile  on  his  face.  He  requested  a  further  interview,  but 
this  was  refused  as  unnecessary. 

*  Dumont  (E.).  Souvenirs  sur  Mirabeau,  p.  86.  Her  influence  on  him 
was  calamitous.  Once,  shocked  by  her  cupidity,  he  said  to  her,  in  the 
presence  of  Dumont :  "  Mme.  Le  Jay,  if  probity  did  not  exist,  it  would  be 
necessary  to  invent  it  as  a  means  of  enriching  oneself."- 

t  Le  Sage.     Crispin  rival  de  son  maiire.     Sc.  XIV. 

io8 


How  Louis  XV.  Overthrew  the  Old  Parlement 

On  his  return  to  his  sister's  house  (his  own  home  having 
been  sold  up  by  his  creditors  at  the  instance  of  La  Blache, 
he  was  hving  with  Mme.  Lepine),  he  told  his  friends  there 
assembled  of  the  judge's  strange  bearing,  and  begged 
Bertrand  Dairolles  to  seek  a  second  audience  through 
Mme.  Goezman.  She  replied  that  since  her  husband  had 
made  only  empty  criticisms,  it  was  obvious  that  these  were 
the  only  ones  which  could  be  offered  to  the  justice  of  his 
cause  ;  that  he  need  have  no  inquietude  as  to  the  strange 
smile  he  had  detected  on  the  judge's  face,  as  it  was  habitual 
with  him  ;  and,  finally,  if  he  would  submit  any  observa- 
tions he  had  to  make  on  the  judge's  remarks,  she  would 
undertake  to  place  them  before  him. 

Three  days  later  Goezman  decided  against  him,  and  he 
lost  his  case.* 

The  same  evening  Mme.  Goezman  sent  Bertrand 
Dairolles  to  Beaumarchais  with  the  one  hundred  louis  and 
the  watch,  but  as  to  the  fifteen  louis,  which  had  been  asked 
for  as  a  gift  for  her  husband's  secretary,  she  considered 
that  he  was  not  justified  in  expecting  them  to  be  returned. 

Now  Goezman's  secretary  was  an  honest  fellow,  who 
had  fallen  among  thieves,  for  Beaumarchais,  on  the  occa- 
sion of  his  interview  with  the  judge,  had  already  had  the 
greatest  difficulty  in  persuading  him  to  accept  a  present 
of  ten  louis  for  his  services  in  arranging  for  the  audience  ; 
so  he  could  not  understand  why  he  should  suddenly 
demand  fifteen  louis.  He,  therefore,  called  upon  him, 
and  soon  found  that  he  knew  nothing  about  the  matter, 
and,  indeed,  wanted  to  refund  the  amount  he  had  already 
received.  It  was  clear  that  Mme.  Goezman  had  herself 
appropriated  the  money. 

Beaumarchais  was  so  indignant  at  this  meanness,  that, 
in  spite  of  the  danger  of  such  a  course,  he  determined  to 
write  to  her  claiming  the  fifteen  louis.  His  situation  was 
already  so  desperate  that  he  thought  it  could  not  well  be 
much  worse.  Moreover,  he  was  convinced  that  he  had 
lost  his  case  only  because  La  Blache  had  given  the  judge 
more  money  than  he  himself  had  offered  to  secure  an 
audience,  and  in  these  circumstances  he  saw  a  chance  of 
convicting  Goezman  of  corruption,  and,  above  all,  of 
getting  the  unjust  decision  of  the  court  reversed.     In  this 

*  Arret  du  Parlement,  6  Avril,  1773. 
109 


Figaro  :    The  Life  of  Beaumarchais 

he  was  singularly  ill-advised^  for  has  not  one  of  the  wisest 
of  men  said  :  *'  Go  not  to  law  with  a  judge,  for  they  will 
judge  for  him  according  to  his  honour." 

As  he  had  anticipated,  Mme.  Goezman,  being  obliged 
either  to  acknowledge  the  misappropriation  of  the  fifteen 
louis  and  giving  them  back,  or  to  deny  having  received 
them,  chose  the  latter  course.  She  evidently  hoped  to 
be  able  to  keep  this  little  transaction  secret  from  her 
husband.  She  boldly  declared  that  Beaumarchais,  through 
a  third  person,  had  offered  her  one  hundred  louis  and  a 
watch  to  secure  her  husband's  favourable  decision  in  the 
La  Blache  case,  but  that  she  had  rejected  his  criminal 
proposal  with  indignation.  To  the  letter  of  Beaumarchais 
claiming  the  fifteen  louis  she  made  no  reply,  but  the 
following  day  his  sister,  Mme.  Lepine,  came  to  tell  him 
that  Lejay  was  at  her  house  in  a  state  of  extreme  agitation 
because  Mme.  Goezman  had  sent  for  him  and  bitterly 
complained  that  Beaumarchais  demanded  of  her  the  sum 
of  one  hundred  louis  and  a  watch  ornamented  with  dia- 
monds, which  she  had  already  instructed  Lejay  to  return 
to  him.  He  said  it  was  cruel  of  Beaumarchais  to  deny 
having  received  them,  and  that  Mme.  Goezman  was 
furiously  angry,  and  threatened  to  use  the  influence  of  a 
certain  duke  to  ruin  them  both.  Mme.  Lepine  said  they 
had  tried  in  vain  to  make  the  unhappy  bookseller  under- 
stand that  Mme.  Goezman  was  merely  equivocating,  and 
that  the  only  question  now  under  discussion  was  the  fifteen 
louis.  Beaumarchais  at  once  gave  his  sister  a  copy  of  the 
letter  (he  was  always  an  admirably  methodical  business 
man)  to  show  to  Lejay,  who,  convinced  at  last,  promised 
to  go  straightway  to  Mme.  Goezman  and  tax  her  with 
bad  faith.  But  though  the  spirit  was  willing  the  flesh, 
in  his  case,  was  weak,  and  in  his  terror  at  finding  himself 
in  conflict  with  a  judge,  he  failed  to  keep  his  promise. 
Beaumarchais  wrote  two  further  letters  on  the  subject, 
which  remained  unanswered. 

From  the  outset  of  his  inquiries,  and  in  spite  of  the 
categorical  denials  of  his  wife,  Goezman  must  have 
seen  that  she  had  received  and  kept  the  hundred  louis 
and  the  watch  until  after  the  judgment  in  the  La 
Blache  case,  and  that  she  had  diverted  to  her  own  use  and 
still  retained  the  compromising  fifteen  louis  ;   but  in  view 

no 


How  Louis  XV.  Overthrew  the  Old  Parlement 

of  the  misfortune  and  discredit  into  which  his  antagonist 
had  fallen,  he  thought  he  would  never  dare  persevere  in 
his  claim,  and  risk  all  the  dread  consequences  for  such  a 
paltry  sum,  and  even  if  he  did  nobody  would  believe 
him 

Before  going  further,  however,  he  attempted  to  make 
doubly  sure  of  his  victim's  ruin  by  writing  a  little  confi- 
dential note  to  M.  de  Sartine  (which  afterwards  came 
into  the  hands  of  Beaumarchais),  asking  him  as  a  special 
favour  to  rid  him  of  this  tiresome  litigant  by  means  of  a 
lettre  de  cachet."^  But  by  this  time  Beaumarchais  had  seen 
to  it  that  all  Paris  was  talking  of  the  fatal  fifteen  louis,  and 
the  already  unpopular  Government  dared  not  risk  the 
suggested  outrage.  Failing  on  this  side,  Goezman  sum- 
moned Lejay  to  his  study,  and  frightened  him  into  copying 
out  and  signing  a  statement,  which  he  himself  had  drawn 
up,  retracting  what  he  had  previously  said  and  supporting 
the  false  testimony  of  Mme.  Goezman. 

Having  made  sure  of  Leja^/,  he  at  once  denounced 
Beaumarchais  to  the  Parlement,  confidently  counting  on 
an  easy  triumph  over  his  stricken  adversary,  who  now 
found  himself  on  trial  on  a  criminal  charge  before  judges 
whose  interest  it  was  to  find  him  guilty  .t  At  that 
period,  it  was  the  practice  to  try,  and  to  judge,  such 
cases  behind  closed  doors,  and  the  penalty  was,  short 
of  capital  punishment,  the  severest  known  to  the  law. 
Any  other  man  would  have  trembled  at  the  odds  against 
him,  but  Beaumarchais  was  never  so  dangerous,  never 
so  completely  master  of  his  mind,  his  nerves,  himself,  as 
when  thoroughly  cornered.  In  the  present  cruel  dilemma 
he  boldly  appealed  to  public  opinion.  Since  he  could 
find  no  advocate  sufficiently  courageous  to  defend  him,  he 
would  plead  his  case  himself,  and  he  would  publish  it  on 
the  housetops.  "  He  would  trample  underfoot,"  says 
Louis  de  Lomenie,  "  the  time-honoured  regulations  pre- 
scribing secrecy  in  criminal  cases,  which  prevented  the 
nation  from  judging  the  judges,  and  whilst  they  prepared 
to  strangle  him  in  the  dark,  he  would  introduce  light  every- 
where, and  call  public  opinion  to  his  aid  ;  but  in  order 
that  the  public  should  respond  to  the  appeal  of   a   man 

*  Letter  dated  5  June,  1773. 

t  The  autograph  denunciation  is  among  the  Archives  nationales. 

Ill 


Figaro  :   The  Life  of  Beaumarchais 

unknown,  or  very  unfavourably  known,  it  was  essential 
that  he  should  have  the  art  of  attracting  his  readers,  of 
holding  them,  of  arousing  their  indignation,  their  passion, 
their  pity,  and  at  the  same  time  amusing  them.  The 
situation  is  such  that  Beaumarchais  is  obliged — we  might 
almost  say  under  pain  of  death— to  display  a  marvellous 
talent  in  extracting  from  a  dull  lawsuit  all  the  interest  of 
a  drama,  a  comedy,  a  romance." 

He  throws  conventional  arguments  to  the  winds  ;  he 
presses  into  the  service  of  his  cause  lively  details  of 
the  manners  and  customs  of  his  time,  equally  lively 
narratives  of  his  exceptionally  adventurous  life,  and 
audacious  discussions  on  the  burning  political  questions 
of  the  day.  He  is  coldly  analytical,  ironical,  magnani- 
mous, gaily  defiant  of  the  injustice  of  those  in  authority, 
merciless  towards  any  kind  of  pretension,  witty,  pathetic, 
eloquent,  with  uncontrollable  outbursts  of  boisterous  fun  ; 
consistently  daring,  cheerful,  and  debonnair  amid  the 
most  alarming  difficulties. 

A  few  days  before  the  trial  the  presiding  judge  sent 
for  Beaumarchais  to  ask  him  what  truth  there  was  in  the 
current  rumours  ;  but  he  refused  to  make  any  statement 
until  forced  to  do  so  in  court.  "  Let  my  enemies  attack 
me  if  they  dare,"  he  said,  "  then  I  will  speak  ;  I  will  never 
believe  that  an  honourable  body  such  as  the  Parlement 
will  be  unjust  and  partial  merely  to  serve  the  hatred  of 
certain  individuals.  As  to  the  declaration  of  Lejay,  that 
will  soon  turn  against  those  who  fabricated  it.  I  have 
never  seen  the  Sieur  Lejay  ;  but  he  is  said  to  be  an  honest 
man,  whose  only  fault  (that  of  all  weak  people)  is  to  have 
allowed  himself  to  be  easily  frightened  and  led  into  false- 
hood by  others  ;  but  when  he  comes  before  the  Recorder  he 
will  never  hold  to  the  false  declaration  which  was  extorted 
from  him  by  Goezman  in  his  study,  and  at  the  first  cross- 
examination  the  truth  will  ooze  out  by  all  the  pores  of  his 
skin.  So,  without  uneasiness  in  that  respect  and  full  of 
confidence  in  the  equity  of  my  judges,  I  shall  not  readily 
lose  my  peace  of  mind."* 

Lejay  now  began  to  fear  the  consequences  of  his  false- 
hood, and  his  uneasy  conscience  led  him  to  consult  M. 
Gerbier,    an   upright  and  justly  celebrated  barrister,  who 

*  ^Umoire  {No.  i),  Ed.  Furne,  pp.  29,  30. 


How  Louis  XV.  Overthrew  the  Old  Parlement 

advised  him  to  tell  the  truth  and  to  stick  to  it.  Lejay 
took  the  advice,  and  told  everybody  whom  he  found 
wilUng  to  listen  to  his  story.  Goezman,  hearing  of  this 
change  of  front,  sent  for  the  bookseller  and  his  wife,  and 
having  adroitly  extracted  from  them  the  draft  of  the  false 
statement  in  his  own  handwriting,  reproached  the  couple 
bitterly  for  their  inconstancy.  Mme.  Lejay  (the  better 
man  of  the  two),  in  spite  of  the  judge's  threats,  declared 
that  nothing  should  prevent  them  from  telling  the  truth.* 
Goezman  next  tried  to  persuade  the  bookseller  to  fly  to 
Holland,  offering  to  pay  his  expenses  and  to  settle  the 
affair  during  his  absence.  Mme.  Lejay  resolutely  refused 
to  let  her  husband  go. 

This  new  manoeuvre,  of  course,  got  to  the  ears  of 
Beaumarchais  ;  and  he  lost  no  time  in  reporting  the  matter 
to  the  presiding  judge. 

On  being  examined  by  the  Recorder,  Lejay,  his  wife 
and  his  clerk  all  swore  that  the  original  draft  of  the  first 
declaration  had  been  written  by  Goezman,  that  the  clerk 
had  made  several  copies  of  it,  and  that  Lejay  had  been 
induced  to  sign  the  document,  which  had  two  or  three 
days  later  been  appropriated  by  the  judge. 

Mme.  Goezman,  on  being  examined  in  her  turn,  said 
very  little,  and  pretended  that  she  had  had  nothing  to  do 
with  the  affair.  On  the  completion  of  this  prehminary 
inquiry,  Lejay  was  arrested  and  imprisoned,  whilst 
Bertrand  Dairolles  and  Beaumarchais  were  placed  under 
surveillance,  and  ordered  to  hold  themselves  in  readiness 
to  appear  before  the  court. 

Marin,  the  author  of  the  Gazette  de  France,  now  came 
forward  as  a  mediator,  and  was  charged  by  Beaumarchais 
to  tell  Goezman  that  he  did  not  fear  his  threats,  as  he  had 
already  done  him  as  much  harm  as  it  was  in  his  power  to 
do.  "  You  can,  however,  assure  him,"  said  Beaumarchais, 
"  that  I  shall  not  take  a  disloyal  advantage  of  certain 
circumstances  which  have  come  to  my  knowledge  to  cause 
him  public  vexation,  so  long  as  he  has  the  goodness  to  leave 
me  alone."  Marin  promised  to  submit  these  observations 
to  Goezman,  but  strongly  advised  Beaumarchais  to  drop 
his  ridiculous  references  to  the  fifteen  louis,  as  they  had  no 

*  Dumont  (E.),  Souvenirs  sur  Mirabeau,  p.  86.  "  He  [Lejay]  trembled 
like  a  child  before  his  wife." 

L13  8 


Figaro  :   The  Life  of  Beaumarchais 

bearing  on  the  case  and  made  him  appear  to  be  extremely- 
mean.  Beaumarchais  told  him  that,  on  the  contrary,  the 
fifteen  louis  alone  could  save  him.  He  saw  that  Marin 
knew  this  as  well  as  he  did,  and  that  he  had  made  the 
suggestion  treacherously  in  the  interests  of  Goezman,  and 
even,  perhaps,  at  the  instigation  of  the  Parlement. 
Throughout  the  case,  in  fact,  Marin  proved  himself  to  be 
at  once  the  ablest  and  the  most  perfidious  of  his  adversaries. 

Goezman  next  tried  to  throw  over  his  wife  and  have 
her  imprisoned  in  a  convent,  but  this  did  not  prevent  her 
from  being  called  upon  to  give  evidence. 

At  the  examination  before  the  Recorder,  the  only 
witness  whom  Mme.  Goezman  appeared  to  fear  was  ]\Ime. 
Leja}^,  and  it  must  be  owned  that  her  evidence  was 
very  damaging.  She  stated  that  Mme.  Goezman  had 
said  to  her  and  her  husband  that  she  never  intended 
to  return  the  fifteen  louis,  and  "  all  she  regretted  was  not 
having  kept  the  hundred  louis  and  the  watch  as  well,  for 
the  trouble  to-day  would  have  been  no  more  and  no  less 
if  she  had  done  so,  but  she  was  unable  to  overcome  the 
scruples  of  Lejay." 

Utterly  discountenanced  by  this  evidence,  Mme. 
Goezman  nearly  fainted,  and  asked  for  a  glass  of  water  ; 
on  recovering  herself  all  she  could  find  to  say  was  : 

"  Madame,  we  are  here  to  tell  the  truth.  Have  I 
ever  conducted  myself  improperly  whilst  joking  with  the 
people  who  have  happened  to  be  in  your  shop  when  I 
have  called  upon  you  ?  " 

"  No,  Madame  ;  nor  have  I  said  any  such  thing  in  my 
deposition." 

"  I  beg  you  to  say,  Madame,  if  I  have  ever  gone  upstairs 
alone  with  M.  Lejay  into  his  room,  and  if  I  have  ever 
remained  there  locked  in  with  him,  so  as  to  give  rise  to 
tattle  and  mockery  ?  " 

"  Good  Heavens,  Madame  !  You  surprise  me  with 
your  strange  questions.  What  has  all  this  to  do  wdth  the 
business  which  brings  us  here  ?  We  are  concerned  with 
a  hundred  louis  which  you  received,  and  fifteen  louis 
which  you  still  hold,  and  not  with  your  private  interviews 
with  my  husband,  of  which  nobody  complains." 

"  Madame,  I  declare  before  all  that  I  have  returned  the 
hundred  louis  and  the  watch.     As  for  the  fifteen  louis, 

114 


How  Louis  XV.  Overthrew  the  Old  Parlement 

that  is  nobody's  business  :  it  is  a  matter  entirely  between 
M.  Lejay  and  myself." 

These  words,  uttered  in  a  trembling  voice,  and  inter- 
spersed with  a  few  tears,  were  all  that  she  could  be  induced 
to  say  in  the  presence  of  Mme.  Lejay. 

After  many  excuses  and  failures  to  keep  her  appoint- 
ments, Mme.  Goezman  was  at  length  brought  face  to  face 
with  Beaumarchais. 

When  the  oath  had  been  administered  and  the  clerk 
had  registered  their  names  and  station,  they  were  asked 
if  they  knew  each  other. 

"  As  for  that,  no,"  repHed  Mme.  Goezman.  "  I  neither 
know  nor  wish  to  know  him  !  " 

"  Nor  have  I  the  honour  of  knowing  Madame,"  Beau- 
marchais answered  the  same  question  ;  "  but  on  seeing 
her  I  cannot  help  forming  a  wish  entirely  different  from 
hers." 

On  being  asked  what  grievances  she  had  against  him, 
she  said  :  "  Put  down  that  I  accuse  and  challenge  him 
because  he  is  my  chief  enemy,  and  because  he  is  well- 
known  throughout  Paris  to  be  an  odious  person." 

Her  reply  w^as  duly  committed  to  writing,  and  Beau- 
marchais in  his  turn  interrogated,  said  : 

"  I  have  no  reproach  to  make  against  Madame,  not 
even  for  the  little  irritation  which  she  shows  at 
this  moment,  but  I  much  regret  that  my  first  opportunity 
of  offering  her  my  respectful  compliments  should  be  due 
to  a  criminal  suit.  As  to  the  wickedness  of  my  character, 
I  hope  to  be  able  to  prove  to  her  by  the  moderation  of 
my  replies  and  my  respectful  bearing  that  her  counsel  has 
misinformed  her." 

The  examination  lasted  over  eight  hours  in  two  sittings. 
The  Recorder  then  read  over  the  evidence  aloud,  and 
asked  Mme.  Goezman  if  she  had  any  observations  to  make. 

"  Indeed,  no,"  she  said,  smiling  at  the  magistrate  ; 
"  what  should  I  say  to  all  this  stuff  and  nonsense.  Mon- 
sieur must  surely  have  a  lot  of  time  on  his  hands  to  write 
down  such  a  rigmarole." 

"  Make  your  deposition,  Madame,"  said  the  official, 
"  for  I  must  warn  you  that  afterwards  it  will  be  too  late." 

"  But,  sir,  what  about  ?  ...  I  do  not  under- 
stand. .  .  .  Oh,    write    down    that,    generally    speaking, 

115  8* 


Figaro  :   The  Life  of  Beaumarchals 

Monsieur's  replies  are  false,  and  have  been  suggested  to 
him." 

Beaumarchais  smiled.     She  asked  why. 

"  Because,  Madame,  I  gather  from  your  exclamation 
that  you  had  suddenly  remembered  this  part  of  your 
lesson,  though  you  certainly  might  have  applied  it  more 
happily.  On  many  of  the  subjects  dealt  with  in  my 
evidence  you  could  not  possibly  know  whether  my  rephes 
were  true  or  false.  With  regard  to  suggestion,  you  have 
certainly  confused  matters,  for  being  regarded  by  your 
counsel  as  the  head  of  a  clique  (your  own  term)  you  must 
have  been  told  that  I  suggested  the  replies  of  others,  not 
that  mine  were  suggested  to  me.  But  have  you  nothing 
in  particular  to  say  of  the  letter  I  had  the  honour  of  writing 
to  you,  which  procured  me  the  interview  with  M. 
Goezman  ?  " 

"  Certainly,  sir.  .  .  .  Wait  a  moment.  .  .  .  Er  .  .  . 
write  :  As  regards  the  alleged  interview  .  .  .  the  alleged 
interview  ..." 

But  Mme.  Goezman  was  unable  to  proceed.  She 
became  involved  in  a  maze  of  half-remembered  legal 
terms  and  circumlocutions  which  she  did  not  understand, 
"  and  had  clearly  not  been  taught  at  her  convent." 

The  magistrate  came  to  her  rescue  : 

"  Well,  Madame,  what  do  you  mean  by  alleged 
interview.  Do  not  bother  about  the  words  ;  make  sure  of 
your  ideas  ;  explain  yourself  clearly,  and  I  will  faithfully 
record  your  evidence." 

"  I  want  to  say,  sir,  that  I  have  nothing  to  do  with  the 
affairs  or  the  interviews  of  my  husband.  I  am  occupied 
solely  with  my  household  ;  so  if  Monsieur  gave  a  letter 
to  my  footman,  it  is  an  additional  proof  of  his  perfidy, 
which  I  will  maintain  against  all  and  everybody." 

"  Will  you  kindly  explain,  Madame,"  asked  Beau- 
marchais, "  what  perfidy  you  can  possibly  find  in  such  a 
simple  action  as  handing  a  letter  to  a  servant  ?  " 

After  a  long  and  embarrassed  silence,  she  said  : 

"If  it  is  true  that  Monsieur  delivered  a  letter  at  my 
house,  to  which  of  my  servants  did  he  give  it  ?  " 

"  He  was  a  fair-haired  young  man,  who  said  he  belonged 
to  you,  Madame." 

"Ah,    that    is    a    pretty    contradiction!"    she   cried. 
ii6 


How  Louis  XV.  Overthrew  the  Old  Parlement 

"  Put  down  that  Monsieur  gave  a  letter  to  a  young,  fair- 
haired  footman  ;  but  my  footman  is  not  fair-haired  :  his 
hair  is  Hght  auburn  ;  and  if  you  saw  my  footman,  what 
is  my  hvery  Uke  ?  " 

"  I  did  not  know  that  Madame  had  a  particular  livery," 
answered  the  astonished  Beaumarchais. 

"  Please  write  down  that  Monsieur,  who  spoke  to  my 
footman,  does  not  know  that  I  have  a  particular  livery, 
whereas  I  have  two  :  one  for  the  winter  and  one  for  the 
summer." 

"  Madame,"  repHed  Beaumarchais,  "  I  have  so  little 
intention  to  dispute  your  two  liveries,  that  I  seem  to 
remember  the  footman  was  in  a  spring  morning  jacket,  for 
it  w^as  on  the  third  of  April.  Forgive  me  if  I  failed  to 
explain  myself  clearly.  As  it  was  natural  to  suppose  that, 
when  you  married,  your  servants  doffed  your  livery  to  don 
that  of  the  Goezmans,  I  was  unable  to  distinguish  from  his 
dress  whether  the  lacquey  in  question  belonged  to  Mon- 
sieur or  Madame.  On  this  delicate  point  I  was,  there- 
fore, compelled  to  trust  to  the  insecurity  of  his  word. 
However,  whether  his  hair  v/as  fair  or  light  auburn ; 
whether  he  was  in  the  Goezman  or  the  Jamar*  livery, 
it  is  nevertheless  true  that,  before  irreproachable  witnesses, 
M.  Falconnet  and  the  Sieur  Santerre,  a  footman,  pro- 
fessing to  be  yours,  received  from  me  on  the  landing  of 
your  staircase  a  letter  which  he  refused  at  first  to  take, 
as  he  said  that  Monsieur  was  with  Madame,  but  which  he 
at  length  delivered,  upon  my  reassuring  him,  and  returned 
with  the  verbal  answer  :  '  You  can  go  up  to  Monsieur's 
study  ;    he  will  be  there  in  a  moment,'  as  in  fact  he  was." 

"All  this  talk  leads  nowhere,"  said  Mme.  Goezman. 
"  You  did  not  follow  my  footman  up  the  stairs,  so  you 
cannot  swear  that  he  gave  me  the  letter  ;  and  I  declare 
that  I  have  never  received  a  letter  from  j^ou  or  on  your 
behalf  ;  and  that  I  had  nothing  whatever  to  do  wdth  pro- 
curing you  this  interview." 

"  Good  God,  Madame  !  "  exclaimed  Beaumarchais. 
"  \\'ould  you  deliver  us  over  to  a  still  worse  suspicion  ? 
If  you  did  not  receive  this  letter  from  your  footman,  since 
it  is  proved  that  he  had  it  from  me,  and  the  appearance 
of  M.  Goezman  tallies  with  the  verbal  reply  of  the  *  light 

*  Her  maiden  name  before  marrying  Coezman  at  Strasburg. 
117 


Figaro  :    The  Life  of  Beau  mar  chais 

auburn-haired  young  man/  we  must  conclude  that  this 
deceitful  footman  delivered  the  letter  to  your  husband  ; 
this  letter,  Madame,  by  which  you  were  summoned  '  in 
accordance  with  your  understanding  with  Lejay  to  pro- 
cure me  an  interview  ;  '  we  must  conclude  that  this 
husband,  no  less  fond  than  inquisitive,  felt  himself  obliged, 
as  a  gallant  man,  to  keep  his  wife's  engagement,  and  .  .  . 
Complete  the  sentence,  Madame  ;  on  my  honour,  I  have 
not  the  courage  to  carry  it  any  further  !  Decide  which  of 
you  opened  the  letter  that  led  to  the  interview  ;  but  if  you 
persist  in  maintaining  that  it  was  not  you,  do  not,  at  any 
rate,  tell  us  that  I  am  compromising  M.  Goezman  in  this 
affair  ;  for  it  is  proved  up  to  the  hilt  that  it  is  you  yourself 
who  are  compromising  him." 

"  Hold  your  tongue,  sir !  "  cried  Mme.  Goezman, 
angrily  ;  "it  would  take  us  till  to-morrow  morning  to 
reply  to  so  many  impertinencies.  I  hold  to  what  I  said, 
and  will  not  add  another  word." 

"  What,  Madame  !  "  exclaimed  the  astonished  Beau- 
marchais.  "Is  there  a  living  man  so  much  his  own  enemy 
as  to  confide  to  you  his  honour  and  the  conduct  of  such  a 
grave  intrigue  !  Pardon  me,  but  I  am  less  amazed  at 
you  than  at  the  counsel  who  has  put  you  forward  to 
maintain  such  a  cause." 

"  Well,  sir,  what  is  there  so  surprising  in  what  has  just 
been  read,  if  you  please  ?  " 

"  You  are  a  very  charming  woman,  I\Iadame,  but  you 
are  absolutely  lacking  in  memory,  and  that  is  what  I  shall 
have  the  honour  of  proving  to  you  to-morrow  morning." 

Just  before  the  sitting  closed,  Mme.  Goezman  turned 
on  Beaumarchais  and  said  : 

'*  Cruel  wretch  !  my  statements  have  just  been  read, 
and  3^ou  put  off  your  rephes  until  to-morrow,  merely  to 
give  you  time  to  invent  fresh  villainies  against  me,  but  I 
declare,  you  odious  fellow,  that  unless  you  give  me  a  full 
answer,  without  preparation,  here  and  now,  you  \^ill  not 
be  admitted  in  the  morning  ?  " 

She,  apparently,  thought  her  husband  had  power  to 
forbid  the  court  to  her  antagonist. 

Amused  at  this  idle  threat,  even  more  than  he  was 
offended  by  the  insulting  words  which  accompanied  it, 
Beaumarchais  laughingly  rephed  : 

ii8 


How  Louis  XV.  Overthrew  the  Old  Parlement 

"  Very  well,  Madame  ;  I  will  give  you  satisfaction. 
It  is  nearly  ten  o'clock,  but  before  we  adjourn,  I  call  upon 
you  here  and  now,  without  preparation,  to  tell  us  how 
it  is  that,  in  all  your  statements,  you  declare  yourself 
to  be  thirty  years  old,  whereas  your  looks  behe  you  and 
clearly  show  you  to  be  only  eighteen  !  "  and  he  bowed 
deeply  to  her  as  he  turned  to  go  out. 

But  Madame  Goezman  was  so  little  offended  by  the 
compliment,  that  she  asked  him  to  give  her  his  arm  and 
conduct  her  to  her  carriage.  The  pair,  arm  in  arm,  now 
prepared  to  leave  the  court,  but  M.  Fremin,  "  best  of  men, 
if  gravest  of  Recorders,"  considered  it  necessary  to  point 
out  to  them  how  unbecoming  it  was,  under  the  circum- 
stances, to  be  seen  leaving  the  court  together.  Beau- 
marchais  thereupon  saluted  her  with  another  compliment, 
which  drew  from  her  a  pleased  smile,  and  turned  home- 
wards. 

Although  she  had  promised  to  attend  the  court  at 
ten  o'clock  the  following  morning,  it  was  not  until  four 
in  the  afternoon  that  she  put  in  an  appearance. 

"  To-day,  Madame,"  said  Beaumarchais,  "  I  take  the 
offensive,  and  this  is  my  plan.  We  are  going  to  review 
your  evidence  and  verification.  I  shall  make  my  observa- 
tions on  them,  but  every  time  you  insult  me,  I  shall  instantly 
avenge  myself  by  making  you  fall  into  fresh  contra- 
dictions." 

"  Fresh  ones,  sir  ?  Are  there  any  in  what  I  have 
said  ?  " 

"  Good  God,  Madame !  your  evidence  swarms  with 
them  ;  but  I  admit  that  it  is  still  more  surprising  not  to 
have  seen  them  in  writing  your  deposition  than  to  have 
made  them  in  dictation." 

He  thereupon  took  up  the  papers  to  run  through  them. 

"  Do  you  mean  to  say,"  cried  Mme.  Goezman,  "  that 
Monsieur  is  allowed  to  read  all  that  they  have  made  me 
write  ?  " 

"  That  is  a  right,  Madame,  which  I  intend  to  use  only 
with  ever\^  consideration  for  you.  In  your  first  examina- 
tion, for  instance,  to  sixteen  questions  on  the  same  subject, 
namely,  whether  you  received  one  hundred  louis  from  Lejay 
to  procure  an  interview  for  the  Sieur  de  Beaumarchais, 
I  see  to  the  honour  of  your  discretion  that  the  sixteen 

119 


Figaro  :    The  Life  of  Beaumarchais 

replies  bear  no  superfluous  ornaments,"  and  he  proceeded 
to  read  the  statement  as  sworn  to  by  her. 

"  Asked  if  she  had  received  one  hundred  louis,  repUed  : 
'  That  is  false.'  If  she  put  them  away  in  a  cardboard 
scent  box  :  '  That  is  not  true.'  If  she  kept  them  until 
after  the  verdict  :   '  An  abominable  lie/  etc.,  etc." 

Yet,  at  the  second  examination,  when  pressed  on  the 
same  subject,  Mme.  Goezman  had  answered  freely  :  *  It 
is  true  that  Lejay  offered  her  one  hundred  louis,  that  she 
kept  them  in  her  desk  for  a  night  and  a  day,  but  solely 
to  oblige  poor  Lejay,  because  he  is  a  good  fellow,  who  did 
not  see  any  harm  in  it,  and  who,  besides,  made  himself 
useful  in  selhng  her  husband's  books  ;  and  because  it 
would  have  been  tiring  for  him  to  carry  this  money  about 
with  him  during  his  hours  of  business.' 

"  As  these  replies  are  absolutely  contrary  to  the  first, 
I  beg  you,  Madame,  to  be  good  enough  to  tell  us  which 
of  the  two  you  wish  us  to  accept  on  this  important 
subject  ?  " 

"  Neither  the  one  nor  the  other  !  "  snapped  this  elusive 
controversiahst.  "  All  I  said  then  signifies  nothing.  I 
hold  to  what  I  stated  on  the  verification  of  my  evidence, 
which  alone  contains  the  truth." 

"  It  must  be  conceded,  Madame,  that  this  method  of 
denying  one's  own  evidence  after  denying  that  of  every- 
body else,  would  be  the  most  convenient  of  all  if  it  could 
possibly  succeed.  But  until  it  is  adopted  by  the  Parle- 
ment,  let  us  examine  what  you  said  on  these  hundred 
louis  in  your  verification." 

Beaumarchais  then  pressed  her  to  show  why  she  had 
sworn  to  three  different  versions  of  the  affair.  She  replied 
that,  owing  to  a  temporary  indisposition  (the  details  of 
which  she  confided  to  the  court  in  spite  of  the  sharp  rebuke 
of  Beaumarchais)  she  did  not  know  what  she  was  saying. 

"  If  I  that  day  denied  having  received  or  held  the 
money,  it  was  apparently  because  that  was  my  pleasure, 
but,  as  I  have  already  said  and  repeat  for  the  last  time, 
I  intend  to  abide  by  what  I  stated  in  the  verification  of 
my  evidence  ;    I  am  sorry  if  that  displeases  you  !  " 

"  Me,  Madame  ?  On  the  contrary,  you  could  not  have 
given  me  an  answer  more  to  my  liking.  I  can  assure  you 
it  pleases  me  so  much  that  I  would  not  for  the  world  have 


How  Louis  XV.  Overthrew  the  Old  Parlement 

a  single  word  altered.  .  .  .  Since  this  is  your  last  word, 
permit  me  to  make  one  observation." 

"  Egad,  sir,  you  are  as  talkative  as  a  woman  !  " 

"  Without  admitting  that  quahty  either  for  the  ladies 
or  myself,"  coolly  pursued  Beaumarchais,  "  do  not  be 
offended,  Madame,  if  I  insist  on  begging  you  to  tell  us  whom 
you  sent  three  times  to  poor  Lejay  to  ask  him  to  take  back 
the  hundred  louis  ;  these  treacherous  hundred  louis 
which  he  had  furtively  slipped  into  your  ItaHan  scent-box 
when  you  were  not  looking  ?  " 

"  I  have  no  account  to  render  to  you  .  .  .  write  that 
down,"  she  said,  turning  to  the  clerk,  "  and  that  he  is 
only  pressing  me  thus  with  questions  to  make  me  con- 
tradict myself." 

The  President  here  intervened  to  demand  a  more 
categorical  answer  to  the  question. 

"  Very  well,  sir,  since  it  is  absolutely  necessary  to  name 
him.  It  was  my  footman  whom  I  sent  ;  you  can  call  him 
if  you  like." 

"  I  beg  you  to  consider  well  your  reply,  Madame," 
gravely  remarked  the  President,  "  for  if  the  footman 
denies  having  been  sent  to  Lejay's,  you  will  find  yourself 
in  a  very  serious  position." 

"  I  know  nothing  about  it,  sir ;  however,  write  if 
you  like  that  it  was  not  my  footman,  but  a  Savoyard, 
for  there  are  any  number  of  these  porters  on  the  Quai  de 
Saint  Paul,  where  I  live.  Monsieur  has  only  to  make 
inquiries,  if  the  game  amuses  him." 

"  I  shall  do  nothing  of  the  sort,  Madame,"  answered 
Beaumarchais,  "  and  I  beg  to  offer  you  my  thanks  for  the 
manner  in  which  you  have  thrown  hght  on  the  hundred 
louis  :  I  trust  that  the  court  will  be  in  no  more  doubt  than 
I  am  to  decide  whether  you  '  rejected  them  openly  and 
with  indignation,'  or  whether  you  put  them  by  discreetly 
and  with  satisfaction." 

"  And  now,"  he  pursued,  "  let  us  pass  on  to  another 
matter  not  less  interesting  ;   that  of  the  fifteen  louis." 

"  Are  you  going  to  repeat,  sir,  that  I  admit  having 
received  them  ?  " 

"  I  am  not  so  presumptuous,  Madame,  as  to  expect  a 
formal  avowal,  but  I  confess  that  I  count  sufficiently  on 
small  contradictions  to  hope,  with  the  help  of  God  and  the 

121 


Figaro  :    The  Life  of  Beaumarchais 

Recorder,  to  be  able  to  disperse  the  mist  which  still  ob- 
scures the  truth."  He  begged  her  to  answer  without 
reservation  or  qualification  whether  she  had  not  demanded 
fifteen  louis  through  Leja}^  for  the  secretary,  and  whether 
when  she  received  them,  she  had  not  locked  them  in 
her  desk." 

"  I  answer  clearly  and  without  qualification,  that  Lejay 
has  never  spoken  to  me  of  fifteen  louis,  and  has  never 
offered  them  to  me." 

"  May  I  point  out,  Madame,"  observed  Beaumarchais, 
"  that  it  would  be  more  meritorious  to  say  :  *  I  refused 
the  money,'  than  to  maintain  that  you  know  no.hing 
about  it." 

"  I  maintain,  sir,  that  nothing  has  ever  been  said  to 
me  about  this  money.  Is  it  hkely  that  anybody  would 
dare  offer  fifteen  louis  to  a  woman  in  my  position — 
to  me,  who  had  refused  a  hundred  the  day  before  ?  " 

"  To  which  day  do  you  refer,  Madame  ?  "  instantly 
inquired  Beaumarchais. 

"To  be  sure,  sir,   the  day  before "   she  broke  off 

suddenly,  and  bit  her  lip. 

"  You  mean  the  day  before  that  on  which  nobody  had 
spoken  to  you  of  the  fifteen  louis,  do  you  not  ?  "  suggested 
Beaumarchais. 

"  Hold  your  tongue  !  "  she  cried,  springing  to  her  feet 
in  a  passion,  "  or  I  will  box  your  ears  !  I  have  heard  quite 
enough  of  these  fifteen  louis.  You  are  trying  to  confuse 
and  catch  me  with  your  wicked  httle  twisted  phrases  ; 
but  I  swear  I  will  not  answer  another  word  ;  "  and  she 
fanned  herself  vigorously  to  cool  her  hot  face. 

The  Recorder  here  interposed  to  ask  whether  it  was 
really  necessary  to  go  further  into  this  matter  which 
appeared  to  offend  the  lad}^  so  much. 

"  I  cannot  understand  why  Madame  should  feel  hurt," 
said  Beaumarchais,  "  since  I  was  careful  to  show  that  the 
sum  in  question  was  asked,  not  for  herself,  but  for  the 
secretary.  However,  let  us  say  no  more  about  '  the 
hundred  louis  rejected  the  day  before — before  that  on  which 
nobody  had  spoken  to  her  of  the  fifteen  louis '  since 
this  matter  troubles  the  peace  of  our  conference  ;  but  I 
ask  pardon  and  privilege  for  my  question  :  the  true  import 
of  principles  is  often  revealed  only  by  the  inferences  that 

122 


How  Louis  XV.  Overthrew  the  Old  Parlement 

are  drawn  from  them.  I  beg  you,  therefore,  to  write 
exactly  :  '  Mme.  Goezman  asserts  that  nobody  has  ever 
spoken  to  her  of  the  fifteen  louis,  nor  proposed  that  she 
should  accept  them.'  " 

Beaumarchais  now  asked  the  Recorder  to  place  before 
her  the  copy  of  the  letter  (submitted  to  the  court  by  Lejay) 
acknowledging  the  receipt  of  the  hundred  louis  and  the 
watch,  and  pointing  out  that  the  fifteen  louis  had  not 
been  returned. 

At  first  Mme.  Goezman  angrily  denied  all  knowledge 
of  such  a  communication,  and  asserted  that  the  letter  she 
had  received  from  Beaumarchais  was  an  insignificant 
scrap  of  paper  having  nothing  whatever  to  do  with  this 
matter  and  that,  after  reading  it,  she  had  thrown  it  away. 

Beaumarchais  now  read  aloud  the  record  of  Mme. 
Goezman's  second  examination  :  "  All  that  Mme.  Goez- 
man recollects  is  that  she  received  a  letter  from  the  Sieur 
de  Beaumarchais  which  made  her  very  angry,  for  she 
understood  him  to  say  that  he  had  not  received  the  hun- 
dred louis  and  the  watch  and  the  fifteen  louis  ;  that  she 
had  immediately  sent  for  Lejay  to  ascertain  whether  he 
had  returned  the  former  sum  and  the  watch  ;  that  Lejay 
had  pointed  out  that  she  had  mistaken  the  contents  of 
the  letter,  which  complained  only  of  the  withholding  of 
the  fifteen  louis,  and  not  of  the  other  items,  which  he 
had  given  back  before  several  witnesses  ;  and  that  on 
comparing  this  copy  with  the  original  she  acknowledged 
it  to  be  an  exact  transcription  and  tore  up  the  original." 

"  Are  we  quits,  Madame  ?  Let  us  count.  I  see  here 
two,  three,  four  round  contradictions  :  First,  you  never 
received  any  letter  from  me  ;  next  you  did  receive  one 
but  it  was  of  no  importance  ;  then  suddenly  this  insig- 
nificant scrap  of  paper  is  transformed  into  a  very  irritating 
letter  which,  on  your  own  showing,  tallied  in  every  way 
with  the  copy  now  before  you.  Yet  to-day  you  declare 
that  you  have  no  knowledge  of  this  letter,  this  scrap  of 
paper,  and  that  it  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  letter  you 
received  from  me.  Does  this  appear  to  you  sufficiently 
clear,  positive,  and  contradictory  ?  What  have  you  to 
say  to  this  ?  " 

"  Nothing  is  easier  to  explain,  sir.  Did  I  not  tell 
you  that  on   the   day  of  my   second  examination  when 

125 


Figaro  :    The  Life  of  Beaumarchais 

I  admitted  having  received  and  locked  up  the  hundred 
louis  and  thoughtlessly  told  this  story  of  the  letter  and 
the  fifteen  louis,  I  did  not  know  what  I  was  saying, 
I  was  in  such  a  state.  .  .   ?  " 

"  Deign  to  come  out  of  it,  occasionally,  Madame,  if 
not  out  of  consideration  for  us,  then  at  least  out  of  respect 
for  yourself  !  Can  you  not  find  a  more  modest  and  less 
fantastic  means  of  disguising  your  defeat  ?  Meanwhile, 
until  a  new  article  is  added  to  the  criminal  code,  in  the 
sense  of  3^our  evidence,  you  will  plead  in  vain  for  the  same 
indulgence  for  bad  faith  which  is  accorded  to  bad  health." 

Beaumarchais  proceeded  to  show  that  she  was  truthful 
only  when  she  declared  that  she  did  not  know  what  she 
was  sa^dng. 

"  Since,  Madame,  you  claim,  somewhat  frequently,  the 
honour  of  losing  your  head  and  your  memory,  would  it 
not  be  better  to  make  use  of  this  innocent  resource  to  return 
to  the  path  of  truth  rather  than  to  wander  further  and 
further  from  it  ?  " 

"  A  foolish  question  deserves  no  reply,"  retorted  Mme. 
Goezman.     Then,  after  a  pause  : 

"  Even  if  all  were  true  that  had  been  admitted  at  the 
second  examination,  this  would  not  prove  that  I  have 
received  the  fifteen  louis." 

"  Far  more  than  you  think,  Madame  ;  for  it  is  easy  to 
see  that  you  seek  to  evade  all  inquiry  into  the  fifteen  louis 
only  to  avoid  suspicion  of  having  exacted,  received,  and 
kept  them.  But,  as  it  is  easier  to  deny  all  knowledge  of 
this  money  than  to  get  away  from  the  overwhelming 
proof  that  you  did  receive  it,  I  will  abandon  the  light  tone 
which  your  insults  made  me  momentarily  adopt,  to  assure 
you  that  your  defence,  even  more  deplorable  than  ridiculous, 
places  you  in  a  most  invidious  light.  To  keep  fifteen 
louis,  Madame,  is  a  smah  matter  ;  but  to  put  the  blame  on 
the  unfortunate  Lejay  (and  it  needed  only  a  little  more 
adroitness  on  your  part  to  ruin  him  utterly)  is  a  crime, 
an  enormity,  which  might  not  be  so  astonishing  in  certain 
men,  but  will  always  be  appalhng  when  coming  from  the 
mouth  of  a  woman^  since  we  justly  beheve  that  calculated 
wickedness  of  this  kind  is  foreign  to  her  nature." 


124 


CHAPTER  XIV 

HOW  ''LOUIS  XV.  DESTROYED  THE  OLD  PARLEMENT  AND 

FIFTEEN  LOUIS  THE  NEW  "  (continued) 

IN  spite  of  the  great  provocation  he  had  received,  the 
first  memoir  of  Beaumarchais  is  marked  by  moderation 
and  freedom  from  personahties.  He  is  far  more  concerned 
with  defending  himself  than  with  inculpating  Goezman  ; 
but  the  pamphlet  was  no  sooner  published,  than  there 
appeared,  in  rapid  succession,  five  separate  and  extremely 
violent  repHes.  The  first  was  signed  by  Mme.  Goezman, 
consisting  of  seventy-four  quarto  pages  of  clumsy  abuse, 
stiff  with  learned  phrases  and  Latin  quotations,  which 
drew  from  Beaumarchais  the  remark  :  "  They  announce 
to  me  an  artless  woman,  and  I  find  myself  opposed  by 
a  German  publicist."  Goezman  had  yet  to  learn  that  it 
is  easy  to  write  works  which  nobody  can  read. 

When  Mme.  Goezman  sneered  at  his  humble  birth  and 
his  father's  calling,  he  parried  the  thrust  in  a  passage 
which  has  become  justly  famous  in  French  literature  : 

"  You  begin  this  masterpiece,"  he  said,  "  by  twitting 
me  on  the  social  position  of  my  ancestors.  Alas  !  Madame, 
it  is  only  too  true  that  the  last  of  them  combined  several 
branches  of  business  with  some  celebrity  in  the  art  of 
watchmaking.  Being  obliged  to  plead  guilty  on  this 
count,  I  admit  with  sorrow  that  nothing  can  purge  me  of 
your  just  reproach  of  being  the  son  of  my  father  .  .  .  but 
I  stay  my  hand,  for  I  feel  him  leaning  over  my  shoulder, 
laughing  and  embracing  me  as  I  write. 

"  Oh,  you,  who  taunt  me  with  my  father,  you  have  no 
idea  of  his  generous  heart  ! — truly,  watchmaking  apart, 
I  know  of  nobody  for  whom  I  would  exchange  him  !  But 
I  know  too  well  the  value  of  time,  which  he  taught  me  to 
measure,  to  waste  it  in  replying  to  such  imbeciUties. 

125 


Figaro  :   The  Life  of  Beaumarchals 

"  Not  everybody,  like  M.  Goezman,  can  say  : 

Je  suis  fils  de  bailli,  oui. 
Je  ne  suis  pas  Caron,  non. 

However,  before  declaring  myself  on  this  subject,  I  intend 
to  seek  advice  whether  I  ought  to  take  exception  to  your 
ransacking  my  family  archives,  in  order  to  remind  me  of 
my  ancient  origin,  which  was  almost  forgotten.  Do  you 
know  that  I  can  show  proof  of  nearly  twenty  years  of 
nobility  ;  that  this  nobility  is  my  very  own,  on  genuine 
parchment,  stamped  with  the  great  seal  in  yellow  wax  ; 
that  it  does  not,  like  that  of  many  people,  rest  on  tradition 
and  uncertainty  ?  Nobody  can  dispute  my  title,  for  I 
have  the  receipt  !  " 

Such  a  combination  of  gay  insolence  and  good-humour 
must  have  been  hard  to  forgive,  and  the  fact  that  in  laugh- 
ing at  his  enemies  he  also  laughed  at  himself  did  not  help 
to  mend  matters,  for  disagreeable  people  ah\a3^s  resent 
good  nature  in  others. 

Mme.  Goezman  complained  of  his  bearing  at  the  con- 
frontation :  "  You  dared,"  she  wrote,  "  in  the  presence 
of  the  Commissary  and  the  Recorder,  to  say  that  if  I  trusted 
mj^self  to  you,  you  would  see  that  I  was  not  imprisoned  by 
my  husband.  You  carried  your  impudence  even  further  ; 
you  dared  to  add — why  am  I  compelled  to  report  sug- 
gestions so  insulting  and  humiliating  to  me  ? — you  dared 
to  add,  I  say,  that  you  would  end  by  making  yourself 
heard  ;  that  one  day  your  attentions  would  not  displease 
me  ;  that  ...  I  dare  not  proceed,  I  dare  not  characterize 
you  !  " 

"  Fie  !  upon  your  dots  !  "  retorted  Beaumarchals. 
"  You  must  dare,  Madame,  you  must  proceed  ;  you  must 
characterize  me.  What  do  you  mean  by  your  dots  ?  You 
put  strange  reticencies  into  your  memoirs.  .  .  . 

"  I  rephed  to  all  your  insults  only  by  compliments, 
which  your  alert  amour  propre  took  in  good  or  bad  part 
just  as  it  pleased  you  to  understand  them.  You  give 
me  a  pretty  reputation  with  your  dots  !  What  woman 
of  repute  will  admit  me  to  her  house  unless  I  destroy  the 
impression  which  570U  give  here  of  my  gallant  respect  for 
the  ladies  ?  What  woman  would  dare  trust  herself  alone 
with  me  if  she  thought  that  the  wife  of  my  enemy,  boiling 

126 


How  Louis  XV.  Overthrew  the  Old  Parlement 

yfi'tC^.  rage  against  me,  and  even  in  the  presence  of  the  judge 
and  the  Recorder,  ran  such  risks  with  me  as  to  demand 
dots  in  attempting  to  describe  them,  and  that  she  thinks 
herself  entitled  to  arraign  me  as  an  audacious,  shameless 
fellow  :  I,  who  in  her  presence  was  nothing  but  a  very, 
very  modest  person  anxious  only  to  defend  himself  against 
his  accusers  ?  " 

Having  refuted,  courted,  teased,  cajoled,  bewildered 
and  confounded  Mme.  Goezman,  Beaumarchais  next  turns 
to  her  husband.  Here  his  manner  changes.  His  banter 
and  flippancy  give  place  to  gravity  and  close  reasoning. 
He  harasses  his  enemy  step  by  step,  taking  extreme 
care,  however,  to  avoid  wounding  the  susceptibilities  of 
his  judges.  With  the  greatest  ingenuity  he  at  length 
succeeds  in  proving  conclusively,  from  internal  evidence, 
that  the  false  deposition  of  Lejay  was  dictated  by  Mme. 
Goezman  from  a  draft  drawn  up  by  her  husband,  and  that 
the  bookseller's  ilHterate  copy  was  afterwards  altered  by 
the  judge,  from  memory,  in  order  to  make  sense.  In  the 
course  of  his  argument,  Beaumarchais  quotes  with  telUng 
effect  the  naive  exclamation  of  Mme.  Lejay  when  this 
copy  was  shown  to  her  :  "It  is  undoubtedly  my 
husband's  writing,  but  I  am  quite  certain  it  is  not  his 
style  :  he  is  not  clever  enough  to  think  of  all  those  fine 
phrases." 

It  was  at  this  point  that  his  enemies  began  to  circulate 
their  cowardly  insinuations  respecting  "  the  sudden  death 
of  his  three  wives,"  though  he  had  been  married  only 
twice — and  he  was  driven  to  defend  himself  publicly 
against  these  charges.  Then,  and  then  only,  he  deter- 
mined to  pursue  his  enemies  to  the  death. 

It  was  an  ill  day  for  Goezman  when  he  pushed  matters 
to  these  extremes,  for  Beaumarchais  immediately  set 
about  inquiring  into  his  enemy's  past  life.  His  researches 
were  soon  rewarded  by  finding  irrefutable  evidence  that 
his  accuser,  in  order  to  escape  the  consequences  of  an 
intrigue  with  a  working-class  girl  named  Marie  Sophie 
Dubillon,  had  given  a  false  name  and  address,  at  the 
Church  of  Saint  Jacques  de  la  Boucherie,  when  register- 
ing the  birth  of  her  child,  and  had  then  disappeared.  On 
making  this  timely  discovery,  Beaumarchais  at  once  turned 
the  tables  on  his  pursuer,  and  brought  his  criminal  offence 

127 


Figaro  :   The  Life  of  Beaumarchais 

to  the  notice  of  his  fellow  magistrates,  who  were  compelled 
to  take  steps  against  their  colleague. 

Beaumarchais  was,  nevertheless,  cruelly  wounded  by 
Goezman's  calumnies,  which  drew  from  him  this 
appeal : 

"  Oh,  you,  my  friends,  who  have  known  me  all  my  life, 
say  if  you  have  ever  seen  in  me  anything  worse  than  a 
constantly  gay  and  genial  man,  loving  study  and  pleasure 
with  an  equal  passion  ;  incHned  to  raillery,  but  without 
bitterness,  and  enjoying  any  well-seasoned  pleasantry 
against  himself  ;  maintaining  perhaps  rather  too  warmly 
his  opinion  when  he  thinks  himself  in  the  right,  but  free 
from  envy  and  always  ready  to  honour  and  esteem 
superiority  wherever  found  ;  trustful  to  the  point  of  negh- 
gence  ;  active  under  the  spur,  but  indolent  and  easy-going 
after  the  storm  ;  careless  in  good  fortune,  but  supporting 
misfortune  with  a  constancy  and  equanimity  which 
astonishes  his  most  famihar  friends. 

"  How  then  is  it,  that  a  well-intentioned  citizen,  of 
honourable  Ufe,  finds  himself  so  pitilessly  defamed  ?  How 
is  it  that  a  man,  good  and  sociable  abroad  and  sober  and 
benevolent  at  home,  finds  himself  the  target  of  a  thousand 
envenomed  shafts  ?  This  is  the  riddle  of  my  hfe.  I 
would  I  could  solve  it  !  I  know  that  in  the  past  the  august 
protection  which  I  enjoyed  drew  upon  me  dangerous 
enemies  who  still  pursue  me  :  that  I  can  understand. 
I  know  that  a  few  dramas  and  several  notorious  quarrels 
have  given  but  too  much  occasion  for  public  curiosity  on 
my  account  ;  that  my  profound  contempt  for  base  asper- 
sions upon  my  character  may  have  exasperated  the  spiteful, 
who  do  not  hke  to  feel  their  impotence  ;  that  a  vain  repu- 
tation for  some  small  cleverness  may  have  offended  some 
very  small  rivals,  who  have  proceeded  thence  to  deny  me 
more  sohd  quahties.  Perhaps  a  just  resentment,  aggra- 
vating my  natural  pride,  has  made  me  hard  and  cutting 
when  I  thought  myself  only  nervous  and  concise.  In 
society,  when  I  thought  myself  only  free  and  easy,  perhaps 
I  appeared  to  others  presumptuous.  Anything  you  like, 
gentlemen  ;  but  even  if  I  was  a  coxcomb,  does  it  follow 
that  I  was  an  ogre  ?  *  .  .  .  Oh,  my  dear  enemies,  you  do 
not  know  your  business.     Forgive  my  offering  you  a  httle 

*  A  subtle  allusion  to  the  alleged  murder  of  his  two  wives. 
128 


How  Louis  XV.  Overthrew  the  Old  Parlement 

piece  of  advice  :   if  you  are  absolutely  bent  on  injuring  me, 
at  least  make  it  possible  for  others  to  believe  you  !  " 

Beaumarchais  now  turned  his  attention  to  Bertrand 
Dairolles,  a  kind  of  stockjobber,  who  had  at  first  taken 
his  part  and  told  the  truth,  but  had  afterwards  recanted 
and  gone  over  to  the  interests  of  Mme.  Goezman.  The 
enmity  of  the  weak  is  less  dangerous  than  their  friendship, 
so  at  first  Beaumarchais  dealt  with  him  quite  considerately. 
Bertrand,  an  indecisive  person  who  had  unaccountably 
blundered  into  the  fray,  sought  to  strike  terror  into  his 
antagonist  by  calUng  him  names  :  "A  cynical  orator," 
he  cried,  "  a  buffoon,  a  shameless  sophist ;  a  lying  painter 
who  draws  from  his  soul  the  mud  with  which  he  sullies 
the  robe  of  innocence,  wicked  from  necessity  and  from 
inclination,  his  hard,  vindictive  and  implacable  heart 
is  giddy  with  his  momentary  triumph,  and  he  remorselessly 
tramples  underfoot  all  right  human  feeling." 

To  this  diatribe,  Beaumarchais  rephed  by  painting  the 
ridiculous  Bertrand  just  as  he  was  :  garrulous,  keen  on 
money  and  not  over  particular  how  he  got  it  ("  Every 
question  has  two  sides ;  just  as  every  stockjobber  has  two 
hands"),  shifty,  timid  and  rash,  more  of  a  fool  than  a 
knave. 

Goezman's  second  champion  was  Arnaud-Baculard,  a 
sentimental  story-writer  and  playwright  of  some  reputa- 
tion, who,  wishing  to  curry  favour  with  the  judge,  wrote 
him  a  letter  containing  a  false  statement.  When  Beau- 
marchais pohtely  pointed  this  out  to  him  in  his  first  memoir, 
he  replied  :  "  Yes,  I  was  walking  when  I  met  the  Sieur 
Caron  in  his  carriage,  in  his  carriage/''  Beaumarchais, 
remembering  the  incident  quite  well,  said  he  thought 
Arnaud- looked  gloomy.  This  made  the  little  man  very 
angry  :'^"  I  did  not  look  gloomy,  but  concerned,"  he  wrote. 
"  Gloomy  looks  are  suited  only  to  those  who  meditate 
crime,  who  are  trying  to  stifle  remorse  and  to  do  evil.  .  .  . 
There  are  some  hearts  in  which  I  tremble  to  read  what 
I  see— in  which  I  measure  all  the  gloomy  depths  of  hell  ! 
It  is  then  that  I  cry  :  '  Thou  sleepest,  Jupiter  !  What  is 
the  use  of  thy  thunderbolt  !  '  " 

If  Arnaud  is  not  vicious,  it  is  at  any  rate  not  for  want 
129  9 


Figaro  :   The  Life  of  Beaumarchais 

of  ti^dng.  Now  comes  the  serene  and  dignified  answer 
of  Beaumarchais  : 

"  In  his  carriage,  you  repeat,  with  a  great  note  of 
admiration.  Who  would  not  think  from  this  sad  :  *  Yes, 
I  was  on  foot,'  and  this  great  note  of  admiration  running 
after  m}-  carriage,  that  you  are  envy  personified  ?  But 
I,  who  know  you  for  a  good  fellow — I  know  very  well  that 
this  phrase  :  '  in  his  carriage  '  does  not  mean  that  you 
were  angry  to  see  me  in  my  carriage,  but  only  because  I 
did  not  see  you  in  yours. 

"  But  console  yourself,  sir,  the  carriage  in  which  I  was 
driving  was  no  longer  mine  when  you  saw  me  in  it. 
The  Comte  de  la  Blache  had  caused  it  to  be  seized  with 
all  m}'  other  goods  :  blue-coated  men,  with  threatening 
muskets  slung  over  their  shoulders,  kept  it  and  all  my 
other  belongings  constant^  under  their  e^^es  at  my  house, 
and,  before  I  could  cause  you  the  annoyance  of  showing 
myself  to  3'ou  '  in  my  carriage,'  I  had  that  very  day 
humbly  to  ask  permission — with  my  hat  in  one  hand  and 
a  good  crown  in  the  other — of  these  tipstaves  to  use  it, 
which — no  offence  to  you — I  do  every  morning  ;  and  even 
whilst  I  speak  to  3^ou  so  calmly,  the  same  miser}^  still 
pervades  my  house. 

"  How  unjust  we  are  !  We  hate  and  are  jealous  of 
the  man  we  think  happy,  who  would  give  anything  to 
be  in  the  position  of  the  pedestrian  who  detests  him  because 
of  Ms  carriage.  Take  me  for  an  example.  Is  there  any- 
thing more  calculated  to  distress  me  than  my  actual  situa- 
tion ? — but  there,  I  am  rather  like  Heloise's  cousin,  cry 
as  I  will,  a  laugh  is  sure  to  slip  out  from  some  corner  or 
other  !*  That  is  what  makes  me  so  gentle  with  you. 
My  philosophy  is  to  be,  as  far  as  I  can,  content  with  myself 
and  to  leave  the  rest  on  the  knees  of  the  gods. 

"  Pardon  me,  sir,"  he  concludes,  "  if  I  have  not  given 
you  an  answer  all  to  yourself,  for  every  insult  contained 
in  your  memoir ;  pardon  me  if,  seeing  you  *  measure 
the  gloomy  depths  of  hell  in  my  heart '  and  exclaiming  : 
'  Thou  sleepest,  Jupiter  !  What  is  the  use  of  thy  thunder- 
bolt ? '  I  have  replied  flippantly  to  so  much  bombast ;  I 
beg  you  to  excuse  me,  but  you  were  no  doubt  once  at 

*  A  reference  to  the  charming  Claire  d'Orbe  in  Rousseau's  La  Noiivdle 
Heloise. 

130 


How  Louis  XV.  Overthrew  the  Old  Parlement 

school,  and  must  know  that  the  most  inflated  balloon  needs 
only  a  pin-prick." 

The  apologists  of  Beaumarchais  have  been  strangely 
unanimous  in  belittling  the  talents  (though  they  have  done 
full  justice  to  the  perfidy)  of  the  third  member  of  Goezman's 
company  of  pamphleteers,  for  Marin  was  by  far  the  ablest 
and  most  dangerous  of  them  all.  They  may  have  been 
misled  by  the  apparent  ease  with  which  Beaumarchais 
overwhelmed  this  treacherous  adversary,  and  turned  his 
poisoned  weapons  against  himself.  Fortunately,  Beau- 
marchais knew  his  Marin,  and  had  had  too  much  experience 
in  combats  of  this  kind  to  give  his  enemy  any  chances, 
and  however  much  he  affected  to  despise  him,  it  is  evident 
that  he  feared  this  man  more  than  all  his  other  opponents 
put  together. 

A  former  schoolmaster,  Marin  had  acquired  the  lucrative 
post  of  director  of  the  Gazette  de  France,  and  in  this  capacity 
had  carried  the  art  of  concocting  and  spreading  false  news 
to  a  state  of  great  perfection.  He  was  also  an  official 
censor  of  literature  and  the  drama,  and  agent  for  the 
Chancellor  Maupeou  in  the  dissemination  of  pamphlets 
and  other  pubhcations  in  support  of  the  new  Parlement. 
He  was  not  above  selling  his  pen  to  the  highest  bidder, 
and  had  fallen  under  suspicion  of  secretly  trading  in  the 
rare  and  scandalous  libels  in  verse  and  prose  which  served 
as  an  agreeable  condiment  to  the  literary  fare  of  the 
fashionable  circles  of  his  day.  It  was,  moreover,  always 
difficult  for  him  to  tell  the  truth  :  he  was  a  sort  of  congenital 
liar.  Lastly  he  carried  on  an  extensive  business  in  accom- 
mxodating  with  loans  ladies  and  gentlemen  in  temporary 
monetary  difficulties,  and  showed  great  ingenuity  in 
worrying  those  who  took  advantage  of  his  good  offices. 

Marin  had  no  quarrel  with  Beaumarchais,  but  entered 
the  lists  on  the  side  of  his  enemies  from  his  habit  of  fishing 
in  troubled  waters  and  to  please  Chancellor  Maupeou, 
who  was  becoming  uneasy  at  the  unexpected  turn  that  the 
Goezman  lawsuit  was  taking.  Having  failed  in  his  attempt 
to  persuade  Beaumarchais  to  abandon  his  accusation 
against  Mme.  Goezman  respecting  the  fifteen  louis,  and 
incidentally,  to  sacrifice  Lejay,  Marin,  by  a  combination 
of  flattery  and  threats,  won  over  the  mercurial  Bertrand 
and  caused  him  to  deny  all  knowledge  of  this  sum  which 

131  9* 


Figaro  :   The  Life  of  Beaumarchais 

he  at  first  admitted  having  himself  transmitted  to  the 
judge's  wife. 

In  his  first  pamphlet,  Beaumarchais,  intent  upon 
setting  out  his  case  and  vividly  describing  the  events  which 
led  up  to  it,  contented  himself  with  simply  parrying  the 
thrusts  of  his  opponents.  Mistaking  his  moderation  for 
weakness,  Marin  rephed  with  a  pamphlet  of  extreme 
violence,  hoping,  hke  Bertrand,  to  crush  the  discredited 
and  ruined  Beaumarchais  at  one  blow.  Having  some 
years  before  published  a  work  on  Saladin,  Marin  apparently 
rather  fancied  himself  as  an  Orientalist,  and  quoted  as 
the  motto  of  his  memoir  a  translation  from  the  Persian 
of  Saadi  :  "  Give  not  thy  rice  to  the  serpent,  for  the  serpent 
will  sting  thee."  But  Beaumarchais  had  his  own  idea 
as  to  Marin's  application  of  the  proverb.  So  far  from  giving 
his  rice  to  the  serpent,  he  said,  Marin  had  "  spoiled  him 
of  his  skin,  enveloped  himself  in  it,  and  crawled  with  as 
much  ease  as  if  he  had  done  nothing  else  all  his  life." 

As  all  the  more  reputable  advocates  refused  to  serve 
in  a  case  where  there  was  likely  to  be  httle  to  gain  and 
much  to  lose,  the  first  memoir  of  Beaumarchais  was  signed 
by  himself  and  an  obscure  lawyer  named  Malbete.  The 
opportunity  was  too  good  to  be  lost  on  the  alert  Marin, 
and  he  opened  his  attack  by  stating  that  a  defamatory 
pamphlet  was  being  distributed  in  Paris  signed  "  Beau- 
marchais Malbete." 

Quite  a  good  joke,  but  Beaumarchais  was  a  past 
master  of  the  pun,  and  neatly  parried  the  thrust  : 

"  The  author  of  the  Gazette  de  France,"  he  wrote, 
"  complains  of  the  calumnious  falsehood  and  impropriety 
of  the  insults  spread  abroad  in  a  pamphlet,  signed,  he  says, 
Beaumarchais  Malbete,  and  he  attempts  to  justify  himself 
in  a  little  manifesto  signed  Marin,  qui  n'est  pas  Malbete," 
In  this  battle  of  wits,  however,  Marin  did  not  always 
come  off  second  best,  for  we  cannot  doubt  that  it  was  he 
who  inserted  in  Mme.  Goezman's  memoir  the  justly 
celebrated  jibe  :  "  The  Sieur  Car  on  borrowed  the  name 
of  Beaumarchais  from  one  of  his  wives  and  lent  it  to  one 
of  his  sisters  "  *  ;  although  in  the  original  MS.,  which  we 
have  seen,  the  words  are  not  in  his  handwriting.     Beau- 

*  When  Pierre  Augustin  adopted  the  name  of  Beaumarchais,  he  persuaded 

his  favourite  sister  Julie  to  do  likewise. 

132 


How  Louis  XV.  Overthrew  the  Old  Parlement 

marchais  was  too  great  a  humorist  to  begrudge  his  tribute 
to  the  excellence  of  this  famous  joke  against  himself. 

If  only  Marin  had  conducted  the  controversy  on  such 
lines,  Beaumarchais  would  never  have  resorted  to  the 
savagery  of  much  of  his  writing  against  this  most  dan- 
gerous foe.  But  Marin's  pamphlets  are  full  of  deadly 
insinuations,  hints  and  allusions,  combined  with  a  sagacious 
economy  of  the  truth,  which  destroy  all  the  sympathy 
we  might  otherwise  have  had  for  him  in  his  ultimate 
humihation  and  ruin. 

As  an  example  of  his  methods  we  will  quote  his  reference 
to  the  La  Blache  case  : 

"  He  (Beaumarchais)  lost  this  lawsuit  which  so  sin- 
gularly compromised  his  honour  and  his  fortune.  He 
informed  me  of  his  misfortune  :  I  was  touched,  and 
hastened  to  his  prison  to  offer  him  the  only  help  it  was 
in  my  power  to  give — my  sympathy  and  consolation.  At 
last  he  was  restored  to  liberty,  and  came  to  thank  me 
for  my  attention,  and  although  there  were  many  persons, 
whom  he  did  not  know,  in  the  room,  he  gave  way  to  his 
usual  indiscretion  and  spoke  most  imprudently  against  his 
reporter  (Goezman),  against  his  superiors  and  against  ..." 
The  stealthy  Marin  had  great  faith  in  the  insinuating 
dotted  Hne  and  constantly  uses  it  most  effectively.  It 
would  be  impossible  to  hint  more  clearly  or  more  dis- 
creetly that  Beaumarchais  was  in  the  habit  of  talking 
wildly  against  the  Parlement  and  against  the  Government. 

In  another  place  he  gives  it  as  his  considered  opinion 
that  a  man  who  defamed  a  good  citizen,  as  Beaumarchais 
had  defamed  him,  was  deserving  of  capital  punishment. 
Again  and  again  he  repeats  that  Beaumarchais  says  the 
most  insulting  things  against  the  ministers  and  highly- 
placed  personages,  that  he  attacks  religion  and  the  magis- 
trature,  and  if  it  were  not  that  he  (Marin)  was  too  kind- 
hearted,  he  could  easily  prove  that  his  adversary  had 
committed  the  most  odious  crimes — he  was,  in  fact,  an 
out  and  out  scoundrel. 

In  this  controversy,  Beaumarchais  received  considerable 
assistance  from  several  of  his  relatives  and  friends  such  as 
the  faithful  Gudin,  his  brother-in-law  Miron,  and  Gardanne, 
a  Proven9al  doctor,  whilst  some  of  the  best  passages  owe 
not  a  httle  to  the  piquant  wit  of  his  sister  Juhe.     Hearing 

133 


Figaro  :   The  Life  of  Beau  mar  chais 

of  the  collaboration,  Marin  went  so  far  as  to  state  that 
Beaumarchais  was  not  the  author  of  the  memoirs  published 
under  his  name.  To  this  ridiculous  charge,  Pierre  Augustin 
replied  :  *'  Since  it  is  another  who  writes  my  memoirs, 
the  clumsy  Marin  ought  certainly  to  get  him  to  write 
his  own." 

Beaumarchais  gave  the  coup-de-grdce  to  his  enemies 
in  a  sort  of  allegory,  of  which  we  will  quote  the  concluding 
passage : 

"  If  the  Beneficent  Being  who  watches  over  all,  had 
one  day  honoured  me  with  his  presence,  and  had  said  : 
'  I  am  the  beginning  of  all  things ;  without  Me  thou 
wouldst  not  exist  ;  I  endowed  thee  with  a  healthy  and 
robust  body,  a  most  active  mind ;  thou  knowest  with 
what  profusion  I  poured  sensibility  into  thy  heart  and 
shed  gaiety  over  thy  character.  Without  some  sorrows  to 
counterbalance  thy  fortunate  lot  thou  wouldst  have  been 
too  happy  ;  therefore,  thou  shalt  be  overwhelmed  with 
calamities  without  number,  defamed  by  a  thousand 
enemies,  deprived  of  thy  goods  and  thy  liberty,  accused  of 
rapine,  falsehood,  imposture,  corruption,  calumny;  groan 
under  the  disgrace  of  a  criminal  lawsuit,  be  bound  with 
the  fetters  of  a  decree,  attacked  on  every  event  of  thy 
Ufe  by  the  most  absurd  rumours,  and  for  long  be  made 
the  sport  of  public  opinion  as  to  whether  thou  art  the 
vilest  of  men  or  only  an  honest  citizen.'  " 

Having  humbly  submitted  himself  to  the  decrees  of 
Providence,  he  asks  for  one  mercy — that  he  might  be 
accorded  such  enemies  as  would  try  but  not  break  down 
his  courage,  he  then  proceeds  to  pass  them  in  review, 
painting  each  one  mahciously  to  the  life,  and  ending  thus  : 

"  I  would  desire  that  this  man  should  be  of  a  dull  and 
awkward  mind;  that  his  clumsy  mahce  should  for  long 
have  given  him  over  to  the  hatred  and  contempt  of  the 
public  ;  above  all,  I  would  ask  that  he  should  be  faithless 
to  his  friends,  ungrateful  to  his  benefactors,  odious  to 
authors  by  his  censures,  nauseous  to  readers  by  his  writings, 
terrible  to  borrowers  by  his  usury,  deahng  in  forbidden 
books,  spying  on  his  hosts,  fleecing  strangers  who  trust  him 
with  their  business,  ruining  the  unhappy  booksellers  to 
enrich  himself ;  in  fact,  all  men  should  have  such  an  opinion 
of  him  that  it  would  be  sufficient  to  be  accused  by  him  to 

134 


How  Louis  XV.  Overthrew  the  Old  Parlement 

be  presumed  an  honest  man,  or  to  frequent  his  society  to 
be  with  good  reason  suspect  :    give  me  Marin  !  " 

Envy  and  hatred  are,  in  the  long  run,  less  injurious 
to  those  who  inspire  than  to  those  who  entertain  them, 
and  the  ex-schoolmaster  emerged  from  the  combat  a 
broken  man.  All  Paris  was  laughing  and  jeering  at  him. 
He  was  soon  compelled  to  relinquish  his  offices,  and  retired 
to  his  native  town  of  Ciotat  in  Proven9e,  where  he  Hved 
on  the  comfortable  fortune  he  had  amassed  before  his 
disgrace.  After  the  Revolution  he  returned  to  Paris  and 
recovered,  to  a  certain  extent,  his  position  as  a  man  of 
letters. 

All  society  followed  this  case  with  breathless  interest 
and  ever-increasing  excitement,  whilst  from  every  quarter 
applause  and  encouragement  greeted  : 

"Ce  vain  Beaumarchais,  qui  trois  fois  avec  gloire : 
Mit  le  memoire  en  drame  et  le  drame  en  memoire."* 

The  King  read  the  pamphlets  with  amusement.  Marie 
Antoinette  brought  into  fashion  a  head-dress  named  after  a 
gibe  aimed  at  Marin.  Mme.  Du  Barry  caused  scenes  from 
the  encounter  of  Mme.  Goezman  and  Beaumarchais  before 
the  Recorder  to  be  played  at  Versailles.  "  What  a  man  !  " 
wrote  Voltaire  to  d'Alembert  ;  "  he  blends  everything, 
pleasantry  and  gravity,  reason  and  gaiety,  strength  and 
pathos,  every  kind  of  eloquence — all  comes  natural  to  him ; 
he  confounds  his  adversaries  and  gives  lessons  to  his  judges. 
His  unaffectedness  enchants  me,  and  I  willingly  forgive 
his  indiscretion  and  his  hastiness  !  "  And  again  :  "  I 
fear  that  this  brilliant  madcap  will  prove  to  be  in  the  right 
against  the  whole  world  !  Heavens !  what  rascahties ! 
what  horrors  !  what  a  disgrace  to  the  nation  !  what  a 
vexation  for  the  Parlement  !  "  f 

The  memoirs  kept  the  Viennese  court  "  merry  through- 
out the  winter  "  J  ;  and  were  read  with  hilarity  by  Catherine 
the  Great,  whilst  their  political  aspect  won  the  high  appre- 
ciation  of   the   sober   thinkers   on   the  other  side    of   the 

*  Gilbert.     "  Satire  I.,"  p.  33. 

t  Voltaire.     "  Correspondancegenerale."     Vol.  LVI. 

t  "  Correspondance  de  Marie-Theresa,"  T.  ii.,  p.  225.     Ed.  Geofiroy  et 
d'Arneth. 


Figaro  :   The  Life  of  Beaumarchais 

Atlantic.  In  Germany  the  addresses  were  just  as  eagerly 
discussed,  and  Goethe  tells  how  at  Frankfort  he  read 
them  aloud  with  great  success  at  a  social  function,  when 
a  girl  friend  suggested  to  him  the  idea  of  writing  a  drama 
on  the  Clavijo  episode,  which  he  undertook  to  complete 
ready  to  read  to  the  same  company  the  following  week  !* 

From  England,  Horace  Walpole  wrote  to  Mme.  du 
Deffand  :  "  I  have  received  the  memoirs  of  Beaumarchais  ; 
I  am  in  the  midst  of  the  third,  and  it  amuses  me  very 
much.  The  man  is  exceedingly  adroit,  reasons  well,  and 
has  a  great  deal  of  wit  ;  his  jests  are  often  excellent,  but 
he  is  too  pleased  with  himself.  Now  I  understand  how, 
given  the  present  state  of  affairs  in  your  country,  this 
case  creates  such  a  great  sensation.  I  forgot  to  tell  you 
my  horror  at  the  administration  of  justice  among  your 
people.  Is  there  a  country  in  the  world  where  Mme. 
Goezman  would  not  have  been  severely  punished  ?  Her 
deposition  is  a  frightful  piece  of  impudence.  Are  people 
allowed  to  lie  and  contradict  themselves  in  this  frantic 
manner  ?  What  has  become  of  this  creature  and  her 
blackguardly  husband  ?     Tell  me,  I  beg  you."t 

The  blind  Marquise,  who  saw  more  than  most  people 
with  normal  sight,  did  not  live  long  enough  to  give  a 
complete  answer  to  this  question.  If  she  had  survived  the 
Revolution,  she  would  have  been  able  to  tell  him  that 
on  the  7  Thermidor,  Ann.  II.,  two  days  before  the  fall  of 
Robespierre,  Goezman  was  brought  before  the  Revolu- 
tionary Tribunal,  condemned,  and  executed  with  Andre 
Chenier,  the  Marquis  de  Montalembert,  and  others,  for 
"  having  become  an  enemy  of  the  people,"  or,  more 
definitely,  for  complicity  in  the  alleged  conspiracy  in 
Saint  Lazare  Prison. 

Mme.  Goezman  survived  the  Terror,  and  lived  on  into 
the  nineteenth  century.  She  fell  on  evil  days,  and  had 
it  not  been  for  the  timely  and  generous  help  of  Beau- 
marchais, she  would  have  become  utterly  destitute.  At 
his  death,  she  figures  among  the  "  hopeless  debtors " 
for  a  sum  of  several  thousands  of  francs,  with  Restif  de  la 

*  Goethe.     Dichtung  und  Wahrheit,  Book  XV.,   p.    213.     Cotta's  Edition, 
1867. 

t"  Lettres  de  Mme.  du  DeflEaud,"  T.  iii.,  p.  90.  1821  Edition,  which 
contains  several  of  Walpole's  letters. 

136 


How  Louis  XV.  Overthrew  the  Old  Parlement 

Bretonne,    Dorat,    Theveneau    de    Morande,    and    many 
others. 

On  the  22nd  December,  towards  seven  o'clock  in  the 
evening,  Beaumarchais  was  summoned  to  be  questioned 
at  the  bar  of  the  Court.  He  confesses  to  a  momentary 
misgiving  on  being  admitted  to  that  august  assembly  of 
sixty  judges,  whose  eyes  were  all  turned  uponhini.  But 
the  organ  of  veneration  was  not  highly  developed  in  him, 
and  he  soon  recovered  (if  he  ever  lost)  his  composure. 
By  clever  manoeuvring  he  seized  the  direction  of  the 
debate  from  the  outset,  and  transformed  the  defendant's 
bench  into  a  tribune,  from  which  he  addressed  the  whole 
country. 

Carried  away  by  his  own  eloquence,  he  gave  the  Presi- 
dent Nicolai  occasion  to  rebuke  and  remind  him  of  the 
gulf  between  him  and  his  judges  ;  but  he  boldly  ques- 
tioned the  propriety  of  his  ruling,  resisted  the  police 
officers  who  attempted  to  remove  him,  and  calling  the 
nation  to  witness  the  violence  done  him,  tried  to  create 
a  riot  against  the  Parlement  in  the  palace  itself.  Then 
suddenly  making  his  submission  to  his  judges,  **  he  fell 
on  his  knees  and  humbly  boxed  their  ears." 

Yet  he  continually  sang  the  praises  of  the  French 
magistrature,  leaving  it  to  the  public  to  discover  the 
deadly  thorns  among  the  roses  he  showered  upon  the 
guardians  of  the  law.  Whilst  that  section  of  society 
which  thought  only  of  pleasure,  excitement,  and  highly- 
seasoned  scandal  was  delighted  by  his  maUce  no  less  than 
by  his  gaiety,  the  serious  people,  who  looked  with  fore- 
boding to  the  future,  were  struck  by  his  courage  and 
abihty,  and  soon  began  to  number  him  among  those 
daring  and  energetic  spirits  who  were  to  build  the  new 
state.  They,  hke  Napoleon,  later,  recognized  in  him 
"  a  forerunner  of  the  Revolution." 

Long  before  the  end  of  the  case  it  became  fairly  clear 
that  Beaumarchais,  in  spite  of  his  denials,  had  certainly 
expected  something  more  than  audiences  as  a  result  of  his 
gift  to  Mme.  Goezman.  On  the  other  hand,  it  was  equally 
clear  that  Goezman  knew  of  his  wife's  venaUty  and  had 
supported  her  false  testimony  by  forgery  and  subornation. 
It  was  impossible  to  strike  the  one  party  without  con- 
demning   the    other.     The    Court    pronounced    judgment 

137 


Figaro  :    The  Life  of  Beaumarchais 

on  the  26th  February,  1774,  condemning  Beaumarchais 
and  Mme.  Goezman  to  "  blame  " — a  conviction  which 
carried  infamy  and  civil  degradation.  It  afterwards  tran- 
spired that  Beaumarchais  had  escaped  the  pillory,  branding, 
and  the  galleys  by  a  majority  of  only  six  votes.  Goezman 
was  deprived  of  his  office.  The  day  following  the  decree 
the  memoirs  of  Beaumarchais  were  condemned  to  be 
publicly  burnt  ;  but  all  Europe  had  read  and  made  merry 
over  them,  and  he  found  himself  the  most  popular  man 
in  France.  The  judgment  was  no  sooner  pronounced  than 
all  Paris,  following  the  lead  of  the  Prince  de  Conti  and  the 
Due  de  Chartres,  called  upon  him  to  enter  their  names  in 
his  visitors'  book,  and  the  public  enthusiasm  for  the  con- 
demned man  led  M.  de  Sartine  to  say  to  him  :  ''  It  is  not 
enough  to  be  blamed  ;  it  is  also  necessary  to  be  modest." 

But  Beaumarchais  was  too  good  a  judge  of  affairs  to 
minimize  for  long  the  gravity  of  the  sentence  passed 
upon  him.  His  ruin  was  complete.  The  Parlement  Mau- 
peou,  however,  did  not  long  survive  its  triumph.  In 
condemning  Beaumarchais  it  dealt  a  mortal  blow  at  its 
own  existence.  After  the  sentence,  the  opposition  became 
more  violent  than  ever,  and  on  the  death  of  Louis  XV. 
one  of  the  first  acts  of  his  successor  was  to  re-establish 
the  former  Parlement. 


13S 


CHAPTER  XV 

CONCERNING    MLLE.    WILLERMAULA    AND    THE    THIRD 
MARRIAGE    OF   BEAUMARCHAIS 

IN  spite  of  his  fame  and  popularity,  Beaumarchais 
was  too  clear-sighted  a  judge  of  affairs  to  bUnd  himself 
to  his  almost  desperate  situation.  But  he  was,  as  Carlyle 
justly  called  him,  "  a  tough,  indomitable  man,"  and  life 
had  taught  him  that  the  hopeful  outlook  is  just  as  likely 
to  be  true  as  the  hopeless  :   so  why  despair  ? 

Not  least  among  the  circumstances  which  enabled  him 
to  meet  this  ill-fortune  with  habitual  cheerfulness,  were  the 
frankly  offered  sympathy  and  affection  of  a  young  and 
brilliant  woman. 

*'  His  celebrity,"  writes  Gudin,  of  this  episode  in  his 
friend's  career,  ''  attracted  to  him  a  woman  endowed  with 
a  tender  heart  and  a  firm  character,  well-fitted  to  sustain 
him  in  the  cruel  trials  which  were  yet  to  fall  to  his  lot. 
She  did  not  know  him,  but  the  moving  appeal  of  his 
memoirs  found  an  echo  in  her  soul.  She  ardently  desired 
to  meet  him.  I  was  with  him  when,  on  the  pretext  of  a 
keen  interest  in  music,  she  sent  a  mutual  acquaintance 
to  beg  Beaumarchais  to  lend  her  his  harp  for  a  few  minutes. 
Such  a  request,  under  such  circumstances,  sufficiently 
revealed  her  motive.  Beaumarchais  understood  her.  Re- 
sponding to  her  wishes,  he  said  :  *  I  never  lend  my  harp, 
but  if  she  would  care  to  join  us,  I  could  have  the  pleasure 
of  hearing  her  and  she  could  hear  me  play.' 

"  She  came.  I  was  a  witness  of  their  first  interview. 
As  I  have  already  observed,  it  was  difficult  to  meet  Beau- 
marchais without  loving  him.  What  an  impression  he  was 
bound  to  make,  with  all  Paris  resounding  with  his  praise 
and  regarding  him  as  at  once  the  defender  of  the  liberty 
of  the  people  and  their  avenger  for  the  wrongs  under  which 

139 


Figaro  :    The  Life  of  Beaumarchais 

they  had  suffered  !  It  was  still  more  difficult  to  resist 
the  charm  of  the  eyes,  the  voice,  the  bearing,  the  conversa- 
tion of  this  young  lady  ;  and  this  attraction  which  the 
one  and  the  other  exerted  on  all  who  met  them  was  con- 
firmed and  strengthened  the  better  one  knew  them.  From 
that  moment  their  hearts  were  united  by  a  tie  nothing 
could  break,  and  which  love,  esteem,  confidence,  time  and 
the  law  rendered  indissoluble." 

This  accomplished  and  enterprising  young  lady  was 
Marie  Therese  Amelie  Willermaula,  known  in  society  as 
Mile,  de  VilHers.  Her  father  was  a  Swiss  of  good  family, 
who  had  settled  in  Lille,  where,  at  twenty-six  years  of 
age,  he  had  married  Marie  Therese  Werquin.  Willermaula 
occupied  a  confidential  position  in  the  service  of  the 
Marquis  de  Dreux-Breze,  Grand  Master  of  the  Ceremonies 
to  Louis  XV.,  and  it  was  in  the  mansion  of  that  noble- 
man that  the  future  Mme.  de  Beaumarchais  was  born 
on  the  14th  November,  1751.  Her  mother  died  at  twenty- 
four  years  of  age  in  1756,  and  her  father  a  year  later  at 
thirty-one. 

At  the  time  of  her  first  acquaintance  \\ith  Beaumarchais 
Mile.  Willermaula  was  twenty-three  years  old.  Rather 
above  the  middle  height,  with  a  lithe  and  well-poised 
figure,  all  who  met  her  were  at  once  struck  by  the  dignity 
and  even  self-assurance  of  her  bearing — an  impression 
soon  tempered,  however,  by  the  good-natured  mockery 
seldom  absent  from  the  lively  blue  eyes  beneath  her 
finely  arched  brows.  She  had  a  wealth  of  auburn  hair, 
a  radiant  complexion,  and  an  adorable  mouth — if  we  are 
to  believe  the  testimony  of  those  who  knew  her,  such  as 
Gudin,  Gentil  Bernard,  Dr.  Melchior  Mieg  of  Neuchatel 
(familiarly  known  in  her  letters  as  "  Frederic,"  whose 
affection  she  reciprocated  after  the  death  of  her  "  bon 
Pierre "),  and  many  other  more  or  less  demonstrative 
admirers.  Her  correspondence  further  reveals  the  fact 
that  she  was  always  frankly  proud  of  the  beauty  of  her 
throat  and  the  shapeliness  of  her  form. 

In  spite  of  the  promptitude  of  her  capitulation  to 
Beaumarchais,  she  was  actually  of  a  rather  reserved 
nature,  and  slow  to  make  friends  ;  upright  and  amenable 
at  heart,  loyal,  affectionate,  and  indulgent  towards  the 
weaknesses  of  others.     She  was  a  man's  woman,  and  with 


<    s 


W^ 


<      So. 


tiHtt; 


Concerning  Mile.  Willermaula 

the  notable  exception  of  Mme.  Dujard  (a  translator  of 
''Sappho"),  the  devoted  friend  of  her  widowhood,  she  did 
not,  as  a  rule,  get  on  well  with  other  women.  "  Nature," 
she  says  in  a  self-portrait,  "  has  endowed  me  with  a 
courage,  a  strength,  a  gaiety  of  character,  and  a  sort  of 
instinctive  everyday  philosophy,  which  suffices  for  all  my 
needs  and  finds  me  prepared  for  all  those  events  which 
come  to  spoil  the  present  and  the  future."  In  society 
she  was  gay,  witty  and  sceptical,  but,  though  she  was 
clever  enough  to  conceal  the  fact,  she  confesses  to  having 
had  little  sympathy  with  the  excessive  freedom  of  thought 
and  speech  characteristic  of  many  of  her  husband's  guests. 
She  realized,  as  Beaumarchais  never  did,  the  bad  form  of 
this  sort  of  talk.  Besides,  if  there  is  one  kind  of  bore  more 
insufferable  than  the  religious  bore,  it  is  surely  the  aggres- 
sively irreligious  variety. 

For  the  rest,  the  opinions  of  those  around  her  had 
very  little  influence  upon  her.  She  never  had  the  least 
hesitation  in  saying  exactly  what  she  thought,  and  sharply 
rebuked  her  "  good  Pierre,"  on  at  least  one  occasion 
when  his  natural  petulance  betrayed  him  into  contributing 
a  foolish  and  blasphemous  letter  to  the  Journal  de  Paris, — • 
even  the  cleverest  people  have  their  moments  of  stupidity. 

With  all  her  good  qualities,  no  woman  was  ever  more 
conscious  of  her  own  shortcomings,  though  she  was  spared 
the  crowning  misfortune  of  diffidence,  so  commonly  the 
lot  of  those  with  the  faculty  of  seeing  themselves  as  others 
see  them.  She  gaily  confessed  to  emplo3dng  cosmetics' 
artful  aid  to  heighten  her  charms,  and  she  never  succeeded 
in  curing  herself  of  a  weakness  for  snuff.*  Extremely 
unmethodical,  she  hated  every  interference  with  her  liberty, 
from  whatever  cause.  Her  temper  was  easily  aroused, 
and  to  lose  control  of  it,  as  she  admits  she  sometimes 
did,  was  one  of  the  bitterest  humiliations  of  her  life.  Like 
all  people  of  a  lively  temperament,  she  was  subject  to  fits 
of  deep  depression,  and  was  inclined  to  hypochondria  ; 
yet  she  never  failed  to  meet  every  danger  and  difficulty, 
in  a  life  full  of  vicissitudes,  with  the  most  amazing  courage 
and  resourcefulness. 

Her  judgment  in  hterature  and  the  arts  was  sound, 

*  See  correspondence  with  Mme.  Dujard  quoted  in  Louis  Bonneville  de 
Marsangy.     Madame  de  Beaumarchais. 

141 


Figaro  :   The  Life  of  Beaumarchais 

she  was  an  accompUshed  musician,  and  a  brilliant 
conversationalist,  whilst  her  letters  provide  a  shrewd  and 
idiomatic  commentary  on  the  events  of  her  time  and  show 
critical  acumen,  much  worldly  wisdom,  and  literary 
ability  of  no  mean  order. 

Mile.  Willermaula  soon  convinced  Beaumarchais  that 
he  could  not  hope  to  find  a  more  agreeable  companion 
to  share  his  life.  They  were  not  married,  however,  until 
the  8th  March,  1786,  Beaumarchais  being  fifty-four  and 
his  wife  thirty-five,  although  she  was  always  genuinely 
under  the  impression  that  she  was  two  years  younger  than 
was  actually  the  case.  In  a  letter  to  her,  dated  the  24th 
August  of  the  same  year,  her  husband  says  :  "  ihis 
marriage  was  the  most  serious  and  deliberate  act  of  my 
life."  Seeing  that  they  had  been  lovers  for  twelve  years 
and  their  daughter  Eugenie  had  supervened,  it  must 
be  conceded  that  in  his  second  adjective  he  had  found 
the  exact  word.  It  is  only  fair  to  add,  however,  that 
Beaumarchais  could  be  reheved  of  the  consequences  of  the 
sentence  depriving  him  of  civil  rights  {including  that  of 
marriage)  only  by  the  prompt  reversal  of  the  judgment 
against  him,  or  by  the  personal  intervention  of  the  King. 
This  may  very  well  have  been  the  actual  reason  for  the 
procrastination  in  regularizing  his  union  with  Mile. 
Willermaula.  If  this  fact  had  occurred  to  his  apologists, 
they  would  not,  perhaps,  have  made  such  a  mystery  of 
the  circumstances  attending  the  third  m.arriage  of  Beau- 
marchais, and  the  birth  of  his  daughter  Eugenie. 


143 


CHAPTER  XVI 

ON  SECRET  SERVICE 

ALTHOUGH  Louis  XV.  had  been  not  a  little  amused 
by  the  Beaumarchais  pamphlets,  he  was  much 
irritated  by  the  public  clamour  which  had  arisen  out  of  the 
case,  and  strictly  charged  the  Lieutenant  of  Police,  M.  de 
Sartine,  to  see  that  for  the  future  no  more  was  heard  of  this 
irrepressible  litigant.  But,  luckily  for  Beaumarchais,  the 
King  had  been  greatly  impressed  by  the  ability  he  had 
displayed  in  the  conduct  of  the  lawsuit.  It  so  happened, 
that  at  this  moment — the  first  of  many  odd  coincidences 
in  this  bewildering  drama — Theveneau  de  Morande,  the 
head  of  a  notorious  gang  of  professional  blackmailers,  from 
his  safe  retreat  in  London,  threatened  the  quasi- domesticity 
of  Mme.  Du  Barry  with  the  publication  of  a  work,  bearing 
the  fetching  title  of  Memoires  d'une  Femme  Publique, 
which  purported  to  be  a  veracious  account  of  the  errors 
of  her  youth.  The  author  had  contrived  to  bring  a  copy 
of  his  book  under  the  personal  notice  of  his  intended 
victim,  as  a  delicate  hint  that  she  might  possibly  think 
it  expedient  to  persuade  His  Most  Christian  Majesty  to 
pay  for  the  suppression  of  the  whole  edition.  When  the 
favourite  consulted  him  on  the  matter,  Louis  thought  the 
simpler  course  would  be  to  obtain  an  extradition  warrant 
from  the  English  Government  against  the  libeller,  and, 
when  they  had  him  in  their  power,  commit  him  to  a  Castle 
of  Oblivion — to  use  Montesquieu's  phrase — for  the  rest  of 
his  days.  His  Britannic  Majesty's  Government,  however, 
proved  too  squeamish  to  accede  to  this  request,  but 
promised  not  to  oppose  the  arrest  of  the  blackmailer  if  it 
could  be  carried  out  secretly  and  neatly  by  the  French 
police.  But  Morande  was  on  the  alert,  and  immediately 
stirred  up  the  English  Press  in  his  favour  by  coolly  repre- 

143 


Figaro  :   The  Life  of  Beaumarchais 

senting  himself  as  a  harmless  political  refugee  who  was 
being  persecuted  by  the  minions  of  an  oppressor  of  hberty. 
That  was  more  than  enough,  and  the  officers  sent  to 
kidnap  him  narrowly  escaped  being  pitched  into  the  Thames 
by  a  furious  mob  which  had  flown  to  the  aid  of  the  outlaw. 

Having  won  this  preliminary  encounter,  Morande  caused 
it  to  be  known  in  the  French  court  that  three  thousand 
copies  of  his  book  were  in  print  and  ready  for  distribution 
among  the  French,  English,  German  and  Dutch  book- 
sellers. 

Now  thoroughly  alarmed,  the  King  commissioned  the 
Comte  de  Lauraguais,  and  other  persons  of  some  note,  to 
proceed  to  London  and  enter  into  negotiations  with 
Morande  with  a  view  of  frustrating  the  threatened  blow. 
But  all  their  efforts  proved  unsuccessful.  At  this  juncture, 
Louis  suddenly  remembered  some  words  said  to  him  by 
La  Borde,  the  court  banker,  in  commendation  of  Beau- 
marchais, with  whom  he  was  on  terms  of  intimacy.  "  Your 
friend/'  said  the  King,  when  La  Borde  was  summoned  to 
his  presence,  "  is  reputed  to  have  great  talent  as  a  nego- 
tiator :  if  he  could  carry  out  secretly  and  successfully  a 
matter  in  which  I  am  interested,  his  own  affair  might  be 
settled  according  to  his  wishes." 

La  Borde  at  once  explained  the  situation  to  Beau- 
marchais, and  indicated  the  nature  of  the  service  required 
of  him  as  the  price  of  his  rehabilitation.  Beaumarchais 
promptly  undertook  the  mission  ;  indeed,  he  asked  for 
nothing  better.  But  the  difficulty  was  how  to  get  away 
without  arousing  suspicion,  for  it  was  obviously  of  the 
utmost  importance  it  should  not  become  known  that  the 
King  was  employing  in  a  confidential  capacity  a  man 
whom  the  law  had  just  branded  as  a  felon.  Beaumarchais 
had  no  sooner  determined  on  his  plan,  than  persistent 
rumours  began  to  circulate  in  Paris  that  the  popular  hero 
was  being  subjected  to  fresh  persecutions,  and  was  threat- 
ened, at  almost  any  moment,  with  arrest.  Lnmediately 
after  came  the  news  of  his  flight. 

This  was  contrived  by  the  Prince  de  Conti  and  the 
Prince  de  Ligne,  to  whom  he  had  recourse  in  his  well- 
simulated  terror.  Both  these  noblemen  were  at  the 
time  completely  duped,  though  the  latter  recovered  his 
perspicacity   soon   after   the   event.     As   for   the   faithful 

144 


ii  ?r 


Ki! 


From  a  lithograph  by   Delpech,   after  a  drawing  by  Belliard  of  a  portrait 
at   Versailles. 


[To  face  p.   144. 


On  Secret  Service 

Gudin,  to  the  end  of  his  hfe  he  never  suspected  the  hoax. 
The  Prince  de  Ligne,  later,  gave  his  version  of  his  share 
in  this  transaction  as  follows  : 

"  I  was  requested  by  M.  le  Prince  de  Conti  to  meet 
Beaumarchais  under  an  extinguished  street-lamp  at  the 
corner  of  the  Rue  Colbert,  and  conduct  him  in  a  hackney- 
coach  as  far  as  Bourget,  whence  I  sent  him  in  one  of  my 
own  carriages  to  my  agent  in  Ghent,  who  facilitated  his 
crossing  to  England.  This  extraordinary  man  pretended 
that  without  our  help  he  would  be  arrested  :  and  yet 
eight  days  later  he  was  back  in  the  private  apartments  of 
Louis  XV.,  who  had  sent  him  on  a  secret  mission,  and  by 
this  ruse  he  put  us  off  the  scent  !  "* 

When  Figaro,  a  few  years  later,  was  to  declare  in  his 
free-and-easy  way  that  "  intrigue  and  politics  are  near 
relations,"  it  is  clear  that  his  creator  knew  what  he  was 
talking  about  ! 

For  the  purposes  of  his  mission  Beaumarchais  concealed 
his  identity  under  an  anagram  on  his  original  surname, 
and  passed  as  the  Chevalier  de  Ronac.  On  reaching 
London,  he  sought  out  the  Comte  de  Lauraguais,  and  the 
pair  at  once  called  upon  Morande.  After  much  haggling, 
Beaumarchais  finally  agreed  to  recommend  the  King  to 
accept  the  blackmailer's  terms,  namely,  20,000  livres 
(say  £800)  down  and  a  pension  of  4,000  livres  (say  £160) 
a  year,  so  long  as  he  kept  his  tongue  and,  above  all,  his 
pen  in  order.  Thus,  within  eight  days  of  leaving  Paris, 
Beaumarchais^  as  we  have  seen,  was  back  at  Versailles 
to  report  substantial  progress.  Upon  hearing  the  sug- 
gested terms,  Louis  jibbed  but  eventually  compromised 
for  a  single  payment  of  32,000  livres  (say  £1,200)  for  the 
complete  destruction  of  ail  copies  of  the  accursed  thing. 
Beaumarchais  rushed  off  to  England  again  with  the 
revised  terms,  which  he  had  undertaken  to  get  the  black- 
mailer to  accept.  On  rejoining  Morande,  Beaumarchais 
says  he  gave  him  a  little  fatherly  advice,  and  then,  by  an 
adroit  combination  of  threats  if  he  persisted  in  his  criminal 
courses,  and  promises  of  generous  treatment  if  he  turned 
over  a  new  leaf,  persuaded  him  not  only  to  accept  the 
proffered  terms  and  to  burn  the  whole  edition  of  the  work 
in  his  presence,  but  enlisted  him,  there  and  then,  into  the 

*  See  CEuvres  choisies  du  Prince  de  Ligne,  1809,  T.  II.,  p.  340. 
145  10 


Figaro  :    The  Life  of  Beaumarchais 

secret  service  of  his  country ;  thereby,  as  he  quaintly 
expresses  it  in  his  Memoir e  au  Roi,  "  converting  a  skilful 
poacher  into  an  excellent  gamekeeper." 

With  almost  unparalleled  impudence,  Morande's 
Gazetier  Cuirasse  informs  us  in  a  note,  dated  3rd  May, 
1774,  that  the  holocaust  took  place  on  the  27th  April 
in  a  brick-kiln  in  the  Parish  of  St.  Pancras,  and  that  the 
writer  (Morande  himself)  had  seen  "  with  his  own  eyes  " 
the  sum  of  32,000  livres  paid  in  conclusion  of  the  transaction. 

Well  pleased  with  the  unqualified  success  of  his  mission, 
Beaumarchais  hurried  home  to  receive  the  promised 
reward  for  his  services.  But  what  was  his  dismay  to  find 
that  Louis  was  dangerously  ill — and,  when  this  singularly 
inopportune  malady  was  quickly  followed  by  the  monarch's 
still  more  untimely  death,  the  unfortunate  Beaumarchais 
saw  all  his  hope  dashed  at  one  blow  to  the  ground,  and  his 
longed-for  rehabilitation  farther  off  than  ever  ;  for  the 
austere  young  King  would,  he  feared,  set  an  extremely 
modest  estimate  upon  services  rendered  in  the  interest  of 
such  a  reputation  as  that  enjoyed  by  Mme.  Du  Barry.  His 
apprehension  proved  only  too  well  founded.  Louis  XVL 
intimated  that  he  proposed  entirely  to  ignore  his  claim. 

■''  The  singularity  of  my  fate,"  he  wrote  when  still 
staggering  under  this  blow,  "  fills  me  with  wonder.  If  only 
the  King  had  preserved  his  health  for  eight  days  longer, 
I  should  have  been  restored  to  the  position  which  had 
been  wickedly  snatched  from  me.  I  had  his  royal  word 
for  it." 

There  was  nothing  to  be  done  but  to  start  all  over  again. 
He  lost  no  time  in  offering  his  services  to  the  new  King. 
But  both  Louis  XVL  and  Marie  Antoinette  had  been  most 
disagreeably  impressed  by  his  conduct  in  the  Goezman 
case.  On  hearing  of  the  judgment  the  new  monarch  had 
been  heard  to  say  :  "  A  good  thing  too  !  " — adding  a 
few  still  more  uncomplimentary  remarks  !*  Whilst  Weber, 
in  his  Memoir es  concernant  Marie  Antoinette ,-\  reports  that 
at  the  time  of  the  lawsuit,  the  young  Queen,  in  allusion  to 
Beaumarchais,  made  the  significant  observation  to  the 
Princesse  de  Tarente  :     "  The  man  whose  malice  makes 

*  See  Memoires  secrets.  Vol.  XXVII.,  p.  240. 

t  See  Weber  (J.),  Memoires  concernant  Marie  Antoinette,  Vol.  I.  Notes, 
p.xxii. 

146 


From  an  engraving  by  Dangiiin,  after  a  portrait  by  Mnie.    VigSe  Lebrnn. 

\To  face  p.   146. 


On  Secret  Service 

people  laugh  is  not  necessarily  wicked,  but  the  man  whose 
deliberate  aim  is  to  make  others  weep  is  really  wicked. 
I  have  read  enough  of  Beaumarchais,  and  never  wish  to 
read  him  again."  It  is  a  humiliating  trait  of  human  nature 
to  find  something  not  altogether  displeasing  in  the  minor 
misfortunes  of  our  neighbours,  and  we  may  be  sure  that 
the  disparaging  words  spoken  by  the  King  and  Queen 
were  not  long  in  reaching  the  ears  of  Beaumarchais.  He 
promptly  composed  a  witty  song,  addressed  to  Marie 
Antoinette,  entitled  Repentance,  which  the  Vicomtesse 
de  Castellane  undertook  to  present  to  her  royal  mistress, 
who,  however,  remained  firm  and  refused  to  look  at  it. 

Under  these  circumstances,  he  could  be  under  no  illusions 
as  to  the  fear  and  dislike  he  had  inspired  in  the  new 
sovereigns.  Nevertheless,  his  case  was  so  desperate,  that 
when  his  overtures  were  peremptorily  declined,  he  instantly 
set  about  devising  some  means  of  making  himself  useful 
in  the  hope  of  receiving  from  Louis  XVI.  what  death  had 
prevented  him  from  obtaining  at  the  hands  of  his  grand- 
father. 

In  the  scramble  for  office,  which  then  marked  the 
beginning  of  a  new  reign,  M.  de  Sartine  was  threatened  with 
the  loss  of  his  post.  Beaumarchais,  ever  on  the  alert, 
was  one  of  the  first  to  get  wind  of  this  intrigue,  and  at  once 
seized  on  it  to  further  his  designs.  He  gave  the  anxious 
Lieutenant  of  Police  to  understand  that  if  ever  he  wanted 
him  he  was  always  at  his  disposal. 

Six  weeks  after  the  accession  of  Louis  XVI.  to  the 
throne,  M.  de  Sartine  reported  that  he  had  received  informa- 
tion respecting  the  preparation  in  London  of  a  fresh  libellous 
publication,  this  time  directed  against  the  Queen.  It 
was  one  of  several  defamatory  pamphlets  in  a  list  supplied 
by  Morande,  and  was  entitled  :  "  Dissertation  extraite  d'un 
plus  grand  ouvrage  ou  Avis  important  a  la  branche  espagnol 
sur  ses  droits  a  la  couronne  de  France  a  defaut  d'heritiers, 
et  qui  peut  etre  mesme  trcs  utile  a  toute  la  famille  de  Bourbon, 
surtout  au  roi  Louis  Seize,  G.  A.  d  Paris,  1774."  He 
stated  that  the  work  was  of  the  most  infamous  character 
and  that  it  was  necessary  at  all  costs  to  get  it  destroyed. 
It  was  written,  he  said,  by  an  Italian  Jew,  oddly  named 
Guillaume  Angelucci,  who  in  England  was  known  as 
William   Hatkinson   (sic).     The  blackmailer's  plans  were 

147  10* 


Figaro  :   The  Life  of  Beaumarchais 

completed  for  the  issue  of  two  editions  in  London  and 
Amsterdam  respectively.  M.  de  Sartine  sought  the  King's 
sanction  for  the  employment  of  Beaumarchais,  as  the  only 
man  capable  of  repelling  the  attack. 

After  some  demur,  and  with  the  utmost  reluctance, 
Louis  agreed  to  the  proposal,  and  Beaumarchais,  hurrying 
his  preparations,  was  able  to  fix  his  departure  for  the  26th 
June.  But  having  been  once  disappointed,  he  was  not 
satisfied  with  a  mere  verbal  commission.  To  ensure  the 
success  of  his  mission  he  must  have  a  written  acknowledg- 
ment, signed  and  sealed,  of  his  appointment  as  the  accred- 
ited agent  of  the  King,  and,  in  order  that  there  might  be 
no  mistake,  he  himself  submitted  a  draft  of  the  phrasing 
he  desired,  even  down  to  the  words  :  ''  Signe  :  Louis." 
Without  this  precaution,  he  said,  it  was  very  doubtful 
whether  his  enterprise  could  be  successful  ;  and  his  failure, 
as  he  was  careful  to  point  out  to  M.  de  Sartine,  might 
have  very  disagreeable  results  for  the  Lieutenant  of  Police  : 
"  In  that  case,"  he  wrote,  "  you  may  expect  to  see  your 
credit  weakened,  to  be  quickly  followed  by  your  fall  .  .  . 
and  I — well,  I  shall  become  just  what  it  pleases  the  fate 
which  appears  to  dog  my  steps." 

At  first  Louis  flatly  declined  to  give  the  written  acknow- 
ledgment, but  in  the  end,  the  importunate  emissary  carried 
his  point,  and  the  King  signed  the  commission  as  originally 
suggested  by  his  agent,  and  caused  it  to  be  forwarded  to 
him  in  London.  Beaumarchais  immediately  had  the 
document  encased  in  a  gold  frame,  and  suspended  it  round 
his  neck  by  a  chain  of  the  same  metal,  not  forgetting  to 
inform  Louis  that  he  intended  to  wear  it  over  his  heart  and 
would  part  with  it  only  with  life  itself  ! 

From  the  moment  he  reached  London  all  we  know  of 
his  movements  is  contained  in  an  amazing  recital  of  the 
episode  in  two  letters  addressed  to  his  friends  Roudil  and 
Gudin  respectively,  and  a  report  addressed  to  the  King, 
dated  15  October,  1774,  upon  his  return  to  France,  with 
such  side-lights  as  will  appear  later. 

Adventures  are  to  the  imaginative  ;  and  Beaumarchais, 
as  we  know,  had  an  extraordinary  faculty  for  investing 
every  incident  of  his  career  with  the  glamour  of  romantic 
drama.  But  although  we  all  like  to  believe  the  most 
entertaining  story  best,  there  are  limits  to  the  credulity 

148 


On  Secret  Service 

of  even  the  most  complacent  reader,  which  no  writer  can 
afford  to  ignore. 

A  traveller  in  an  unknown  country  may  have  to  accept 
as  his  guide  a  man  who  presents  dubious  credentials,  but 
he  will  follow  him  with  a  watchful  eye  to  his  bearings,  and 
a  suspicious  mind  for  the  incidents  of  the  journey.  Beau- 
marchais  has  only  himself  to  blame  if  his  evasions  and  pre- 
varications compel  us  rigorously  to  scrutinize  the  vain- 
glorious and,  in  some  respects,  incredible  narrative  which 
he  has  seen  fit  to  give  out  as  a  veracious  account  of  his 
adventures  on  secret  service. 


149 


CHAPTER  XVII 

BEAUMARCHAIS     AND     THE     BRIGANDS    OF    THE    LEICHTEN- 
HOLTZ 

MORE  fortunate  than  anyone  else  had  been,  Beau- 
marchais  experienced  no  difficulty  in  getting  into 
touch  with  the  elusive  Hebrew  of  the  incongruous  names, 
and  in  an  autograph  letter  (brought  to  light  by  M.  Lintil- 
hac)  addressed  to  the  King  under  cover  to  M.  de  Sartine, 
he  is  able  to  report : 

"  This  Sunday,  July,   1774. 

"  I  have  seen  the  MS.:  I  have  read  it,  and  have  even 
been  able  to  make  an  abstract  of  it.  .  .  .  This  advantage 
was  obtained  by  offering  fifty  guineas  to  have  it  clandes- 
tinely conveyed  to  me  for  a  few  hours.  I  thought  it 
expedient  to  begin  in  this  way,  for  the  work  might  have 
been  merely  a  spiteful  ineptitude  not  worth  troubling 
about.  In  that  case  I  should  have  come  back  at 
once. 

"  The  MS.  was  brought  to  me  secretly  at  Vauxhall 
Gardens  last  night,  on  condition  that  I  returned  it  by  five 
o'clock  in  the  morning  :  an  intrigue  I  set  going  among 
valets  which  served  me  rather  well.  Returning  to  my 
lodging,  I  read  it,  made  a  summary  of  it,  and  about  four 
o'clock  in  the  morning,  upon  a  pre-arranged  signal,  I 
opened  the  window  of  my  parlour  looking  out  on  to  the 
Marylebone  Road,  and  threw  the  packet  to  the  man  who 
had  delivered  it  to  me."  Appended  to  this  report  is  a 
detailed  analysis  of  the  pamphlet. 

Having  thus  assured  himself  of  the  gravity  of  the  threat 
to  the  young  Queen,  he  interviewed  Guillaume  Angelucci 
{alias  William  Hatkinson)  and  soon  won  him  over  as  he 
had  done  Morande,  and,  within  a  few  days  of  his  reaching 
London,  the  payment  of  a  sum  of  £1,400  procured  him  the 

150 


Beau  mar  chais  and  the  Brigands 

pleasure  of  superintending  the  burning  of  the  English 
edition  of  the  offensive  brochure.  With  his  English  valet 
(who,  it  will  be  useful  to  remember,  knew  German),  he  next 
accompanied  the  Jew  to  Amsterdam  in  order  to  destroy 
the  Dutch  edition.  This  good  work  being  satisfactorily 
accomplished,  Beaumarchais  dismissed  Angelucci-Hatkin- 
son  with  the  fruits  of  his  industry,  and  took  the  opportunity 
of  making  a  tour  of  the  art  galleries  and  libraries  of  Amster- 
dam by  way  of  relaxation. 

But  "  this  accursed  Israelite "  had  tricked  him  by 
surreptitiously  holding  back  one  copy  of  the  pamphlet, 
with  which  he  fled  to  Nuremberg,  where,  it  was  said,  he 
intended  to  print  editions  in  French  and  Italian. 

"  I  am  like  a  raging  lion,"  wrote  Beaumarchais  to  M. 
de  Sartine.  "  I  have  no  money,  but  I  have  diamonds  and 
jewellery  :  I  shall  sell  all  that  I  have  and,  with  fury  in  my 
heart,  take  to  post-chaising  again.  ...  I  do  not  know 
German,  I  have  no  idea  of  my  way,  but  I  have  got  a  good 
map,  from  which  I  see  I  am  going  to  Nimwegen,  Cleves, 
Dusseldorf,  Cologne,  Frankfort,  Mayence,  and  lastly  to 
Nuremberg.  I  shall  travel  night  and  day,  if  I  do  not  fall 
with  fatigue  by  the  way.  Curses  on  the  abominable  wretch 
who  makes  me  journey  another  three  or  four  hundred 
leagues  after  everything  was  settled,  and  I  hoped  to  have 
earned  a  rest  !  If  I  overtake  him  I  shall  strip  him  of 
his  papers  and  kill  him  for  all  the  trouble  and  anxiety 
he  has  caused  me." 

Immediately  after  writing  these  words  the  father  of 
Figaro  dashed  off  in  pursuit  of  the  son  of  Israel.  Fortunate- 
ly, he  knew  not  only  the  route  his  quarry  had  taken,  but 
the  town  he  was  making  for  and  his  intentions  when  he 
got  there.  How  he  came  by  this  knowledge  he  does  not 
explain  :  to  do  so  might  have  taken  him  a  long  time,  and 
he  was  in  a  great  hurry. 

At  the  entrance  of  a  small  wood  a  few  miles  from 
Neustadt,  according  to  one  statement  of  Beaumarchais, 
he  saw  a  little  man,  mounted  on  a  pony  trotting  along  the 
highway  ahead  of  him.  We  thought  as  much  :  it  was 
Angelucci,  who  turning  at  that  moment,  and  recognizing 
his  pursuer,  made  off  into  the  heart  of  the  wood.  Springing 
from  his  carriage,  with  a  pistol  in  his  hand,  Beaumarchais 
rushed  after  him.     As  the  pony  penetrated  further  into  the 

151 


Figaro  :    The  Life  of  Beaumarchais 

forest  the  Jew  was  forced  to  slacken  his  pace,  and  Beau- 
marchais overtaking  him,  seized  him  by  the  heel  of  his  boot, 
pulled  him  from  the  saddle,  and  compelled  him  to  ransack 
his  valise  and  produce  the  famous  pamphlet.  Thinking 
his  last  hour  had  come,  Angelucci  pleaded  so  hard  for  his 
life  that  Beaumarchais  not  only  spared  him,  but  restored 
to  him  a  portion  of  the  money  he  had  previously  given 
him,  and  let  him  go  free.  He  then  retraced  his  steps 
towards  the  carriage ;  but  he  had  scarcely  dismissed 
Angelucci  when  he  was  attacked  by  two  bandits,  one  of 
whom,  armed  with  a  long  knife,  demanded  his  purse  or 
his  life.  Beaumarchais  immediately  fired,  but  his  pistol 
failed  to  go  off.  Meanwhile  the  other  ruffian  had  stolen 
up  behind  him,  and  knocked  him  down,  whilst  the  man 
with  the  knife  darted  in  and  stabbed  at  his  chest.  Happily, 
the  blade,  deflected  by  the  gold-case  containing  the  royal 
commission,  slid  upwards,  only  slightly  wounding  his  neck 
and  deeply  cutting  his  chin.  Struggling  to  his  feet,  he 
snatched  the  knife  from  his  first  assailant  (badly  wounding 
his  hand  in  doing  so),  and  succeeded  in  throwing  him  to 
the  earth,  and  then  partly  bound  him  with  a  view  of  bring- 
ing him  to  justice.  But  the  other,  who  had  at  first  fled, 
now  returned  with  reinforcements  and  it  might  have  gone 
ill  with  Beaumarchais  had  it  not  been  for  the  timely 
arrival  of  his  lackey  and  an  equally  opportune  blast 
of  his  postilion's  horn  which  put  the  brigands  to  flight. 
That,  in  brief,  is  one  story,  and  if  we  do  not  like  it, 
Beaumarchais  offers  us  another — two  or  three  more, 
in  fact.  To  Conrad  Griiber,  landlord  of  the  Red  Cock 
Inn  at  Nuremberg,  he  told  the  tale  embodied  in  the  official 
report  as  forwarded  to  Headquarters  by  Chief  Postal 
Superintendent  Fezer.  This  interesting  document  is  as 
follows  : 

"  Nuremberg,  i8  August,  1774. 
"  At  nine  o'clock  in  the  morning,  I  was  called  to  the 
Red  Cock  Inn,  and  learned  that  a  French  gentleman, 
named  de  Rohnac  (sic),  had  arrived  there  last  night,  and 
in  the  presence  of  the  Baron  von  Nietsche,  an  officer  of 
the  Royal  Poland  Regiment,  lodging  there,  and  the  host 
of  the  said  Inn,  Conrad  Griiber,  showed  two  recent  wounds, 
one  in  the  left  hand  and  the  other  in  the  chin,  as  also 
blood-stains  on  his  clothes,  stating  that  yesterday  in  broad 

152 


Beaumarchais  and  the  Brigands 

daylight,  between  three  and  four  o'clock  in  the  afternoon, 
he  was  attacked  by  highway  robbers  about  a  league  before 
reaching  Neustadt,  under  the  following  circumstances  : 

"  Getting  down  from  his  carriage  near  a  fir  wood,  he 
told  his  servant  to  drive  on  slowly  and  himself  advanced 
a  short  distance  into  the  wood,  when  he  saw  coming  towards 
him  a  man  on  horseback  followed  by  another  on  foot.  The 
first  threw  himself  upon  him  and  dealt  him  a  deadly  blow 
in  the  chest  with  a  long  knife,  which,  deflected  by  an  order 
or  portrait  he  carried  suspended  round  his  neck  by  a  gold 
chain,  merely  wounded  his  chin  and  bruised  his  chest, 
and  thus  gave  him  an  opportunity  of  snatching  the  weapon 
away  with  his  left  hand,  cutting  his  fingers  to  the  bone 
in  doing  so.  During  the  struggle,  the  man  on  foot,  coming 
from  behind,  tried  to  seize  him,  but  he  had  the  good  fortune 
to  master  and  throw  him  to  the  ground,  at  the  same 
time  drawing  his  pocket  pistol,  which  had  already  put  the 
horseman  to  flight.  The  man  on  foot  threw  himself  on 
his  knees  begging  for  mercy  ;  the  horseman  in  his  flight 
had  lost  his  hat  and  wig,  which  permitted  M.  Rohnac 
to  see  that  he  had  black  hair. 

"  As  his  carriage  was  still  some  distance  away,  and  he 
thought  he  saw  several  more  people  in  the  wood,  he  had, 
whilst  thanking  God  for  saving  him,  set  this  second 
assailant  free  and  regained  his  carriage  with  all  speed. 
These  two  ruffians,  he  thought,  had  every  appearance  of 
being  Jews,  and  he  has,  he  says,  described  them  to  the 
life  in  the  following  written  statement  : 

*"  In  a  fir-wood  about  a  league  before  reaching  Neustadt, 
M.  de  Ronac  was  attacked  by  two  men,  one  of  whom, 
armed  with  a  hilted  knife,  is  about  5ft.  2in.  in  height, 
of  slight  build,  with  a  long,  lean  face,  aquihne  nose,  and 
big,  black,  forbidding  eyes,  and  a  very  yellow  complexion. 
He  has  black  hair  under  a  round,  blond  wig.  He  wears 
a  blue  riding-coat  of  EngUsh  make,  with  brass  buttons, 
a  red  waistcoat,  leather  breeches  and  top-boots  :  he  looks 
like  a  Jew.  His  companion  called  him  *  Angelucci.' 
He  rides  a  brown-bay  pony,  with  a  white  mark  down 
the  entire  front  of  its  head.  The  second  is  tall,  wearing 
a  grey  vest,  without  sleeves,  and  carrying  a  blue  coat 
over  his  arm,  and  a  big  hat  without  brim.  He  has  rather 
a    white    complexion,    fair    hair    and    round    face.      His 

153 


Figaro  :   The  Life  of  Beaumarchais 

companion,  on  seeing  him  thrown  to  the  ground  by  M.  de 
Ronac,  called  him  '  Hatkinson.'  " 

Fezer  added  that  he  begged  M.  de  Ronac  to  accom- 
pany him  to  his  head  office  to  make  his  deposition  in 
person,  but  he  excused  liimself  on  account  of  the  urgency 
of  his  business  in  Vienna,  asking  that  all  further  inquiries 
or  information  might  be  addressed  to  him  at  the  Poste 
Restante,  Vienna.  In  spite  of  his  hurry  to  get  away, 
however,  Beaumarchais  was  obliged  to  appear  before  the 
Burgomaster  and  repeat  his  deposition  before  that  worthy, 
who  in  his  turn  forwarded  his  report  on  the  matter  to 
Headquarters.  As  this  statement  is  a  repetition  in  brief 
of  the  Postal  Superintendent's  evidence,  we  will  only 
quote  the  exordium  which  is  too  good  to  miss.  With 
an  impudence  worthy  of  Figaro  himself,  M.  de  Ronac 
suggests  that  "  the  authorities  should  keep  a  sharp  watch 
at  all  the  gates  of  the  town  in  order  that  these  men  may, 
if  possible,  be  arrested,  in  which  case  Her  Imperial  Majesty 
should  be  immediately  informed,  for  the  Empress  would 
take  the  keenest  interest  in  this  news." 

The  foregoing  documents  are  sufficiently  damaging  to 
the  credibihty  of  the  royal  emissary's  narrative.  But 
worse  is  to  come.  On  his  arrival  at  Nuremberg  we  might 
think  he  would  take  his  postihon's  advice  to  rest  for  a 
few  days  and  have  his  wounds  properly  dressed.  Not 
at  all.  He  must  press  forward  to  Ratisbon  with  the  least 
possible  delay.  He  had  no  sooner  dismissed  the  postiHon 
at  Emskirchen,  however,  than  he  became  aware  of  the 
fact  that  the  jolting  of  a  post-chaise  caused  him  a  great 
deal  of  pain,  in  fact  he  could  scarcely  breathe  because  of 
the  oppression  in  his  chest  which  had  suddenly  grown 
intolerable  ;  so  as  soon  as  he  struck  the  Danube,  he  decided 
to  continue  his  journey  by  boat.  This  course  had  the 
advantage  of  withdrawing  him  from  the  indiscreet  in- 
quiries of  officialdom.  Besides,  he  had  told  the  story  so 
often  that  sooner  or  later  some  unconsidered  trifle  was 
bound  to  trip  him  up.  On  the  voyage,  he  beguiled  the 
time  by  writing  the  letters  to  Roudil  and  Gudin  already 
referred  to,  exhorting  them  to  read  selected  passages  to 
all  his  friends  "male  and  female."  He  reached  Vienna 
without  further  mishap. 

Meanwhile,  the  honest  postilion,  on  his  way  home  to 

154 


Beaumarchais  and  the  Brigands 

Langenfeld,  was  very  much  exercised  in  his  mind  over 
the  strange  behaviour  of  his  late  fare,  both  before  and 
after  the  alleged  attack  by  brigands.  The  more  he  thought 
about  it,  the  less  he  hked  it.  He  really  did  not  know  what 
to  make  of  it.  On  reaching  Neustadt,  therefore,  he  sought 
out  the  authorities,  and  made  the  following  declaration  : 

"  Received  at  Neustadt  on  the  Aisch, 

"  14th  August,  1774. 
at  about  6  o'clock  in  the  evening. 
"  Appearing  before  the  Officer  of  the  Bailiwick,   the 
postiHon  attached  to  the  station  of  Langenfeld,  immediately 
upon  his  return  from  Emskirchen. 

"  JOHANN   GeORG   DrATZ. 

"  Who  states  that, 

"  This  afternoon  he  drove  to  Emskirchen  a  traveller, 
whose  name  he  does  not  know,  but  who  might  have  been 
seen  passing  here  at  about  4  o'clock.  He  was  an  EngUsh- 
man,  knowing  no  German,  driving  in  a  private  two-wheeled 
carriage,  accompanied  by  a  servant  who  understands 
German.  He  is  not  sure  whether  this  gentleman  is  in 
his  right  senses,  nor  what  is  the  matter  with  him,  but  he 
thinks  it  his  duty  to  relate  what  happened  to  him  with 
this  traveller. 

"  On  the  other  side  of  Diebach  (a  hamlet  between 
Langenfeld  and  Neustadt),  deponent,  on  turning  round, 
noticed  the  stranger  stand  up  and  take  from  his  trunk 
what  looked  hke  a  toilet  set  and  draw  out  a  mirror  and  a 
razor.  He  thought  it  strange  that  the  gentleman  should 
wish  to  shave  whilst  the  chaise  was  in  motion. 

"  After  passing  Diebach,  when  entering  the  wood  called 
Leichtenholtz  the  traveller,  ordering  him  to  stop,  got  down 
and  walked  towards  the  middle  of  the  wood,  carrying  a 
Spanish  cane  in  his  hand,  and  telhng  his  servant  to  order 
him  to  drive  on  slowly.  ...  He  could  not  understand 
why  the  gentleman  should  want  to  go  into  the  heart  of 
the  wood  unless  it  was  to  amuse  himself  by  shooting, 
but  then  he  took  no  firearm  with  him. 

"  The  deponent  wished  soon  to  stop,  but  was  told  by  the 
155 


Figaro  :   The  Life  of  Beau  mar  chais 

servant  to  go  on,  which  he  did  very  slowly  as  far  as  the 
extreme  limit  of  the  Leichtenholtz,  and  the  traveller  not 
returning  they  waited  there  for  about  half-an-hour.  At 
this  moment  there  passed  across  the  highway  from  the 
wood,  three  carpenter's  mates,  coming  home  from  work, 
with  their  axes  over  their  shoulders  and  their  tool-bags 
on  their  backs,  and  soon  afterwards  the  gentleman  emerged 
from  among  the  trees  with  his  hand  wrapped  in  a  white 
handkerchief.  He  told  his  servant,  and  the  latter  repeated 
it  to  witness  in  German,  that  he  had  seen  some  bandits  ... 
but  the  deponent  replied  to  the  servant  that  perhaps  his 
master  had  seen  the  carpenter's  mates  and  had  mistaken 
them  for  bandits.  The  traveller,  thereupon,  resumed  his 
place  in  the  carriage  and  ordered  him  to  proceed. 

"  Whilst  traversing  the  town,  a  little  above  the  hospi- 
tal, the  gentleman  lowered  the  window  of  the  carriage 
and,  through  the  opening,  the  deponent  noticed  that  the 
handkerchief  enveloping  the  traveller's  hand  was  stained 
with  blood  and  that  there  was  also  a  little  blood  on  the 
left  side  of  his  neck  and  on  his  cravat,  and  having  asked 
him  what  it  was,  he  replied  that  he  had  been  fired  on. 
The  deponent,  thereupon,  wished  to  report  here  in  order 
that  the  gentleman  might  make  his  deposition,  but  he 
would  not  hear  of  it,  ordering  him  to  push  on  to  Emskir- 
chen.  On  reaching  this  town,  the  traveller  repeated  to 
the  Post-Master  that  he  had  been  attacked  by  brigands, 
but  did  not  wish  to  show  his  wounds  or  make  a  formal 
declaration  ;  on  the  contrary,  he  set  out  with  all  speed 
for  Nuremberg. 

"  He  thinks  that  the  gentleman  must  have  wounded 
himself  with  the  razor  which  he  had  taken  with  him  into 
the  wood,  and  might  make  trouble  at  Nuremberg  in  such 
a  way  as  to  give  this  route  a  bad  name — especially  as  the 
mail  was  lately  held  up  by  robbers  near  Possenheim— and 
make  it  appear  that  this  road  is  not  safe  since  travellers 
were  attacked  in  broad  daylight.  .  .   . 

"  The  deponent  states  : 

"  That  neither  in  nor  near  the  Leichtenholtz  did  he 
see  any  one  except  the  three  carpenter's  mates,  and  that 
he  noticed  absolutely  nothing  which  could  lead  him  to 
believe  in  the  presence  of  malefactors  and  that  he  had 
heard  nothing  whatever  of  the  alleged  shot.     As  for  the 

156 


Beaumarchais  and  the  Brigands 

wounds,  the  gentleman  would  not  let  him  or  the  Post- 
Master  at  Emskirchen  examine  them.  His  hand  was 
enveloped  in  a  handkerchief  and,  as  far  as  he  could  see, 
the  wound  on  his  neck  was  quite  an  insignificant  scratch 
which  did  not  bleed  much.  .  .  ." 

The  reader  is  now  in  full  possession  of  the  evidence 
on  both  sides.  The  discussion  of  this  subject  has  revealed 
among  contemporary  and  modern  French  and  German 
writers  an  extraordinary  diversity  of  opinion,  from  the 
artless  credulity  of  Gudin  and  the  slightly  hesitating 
confidence  of  de  Lomenie  to  the  open  mistrust  of  Bettel- 
heim  and  Huot ;  whilst  M.  Lintilhac,  the  most  pains- 
taking and  thorough  of  modern  apologists,  unable  to 
ignore  the  researches  of  the  censors,  airily  dismisses  the 
escapade  as  a  harmless  practical  joke  in  rather  bad  taste, 
but  clings  to  the  authenticity  of  the  comic  opera  Jew. 

It  is  good  for  a  biographer  to  be  in  complete  sympathy 
with  his  subject,  but  it  is  also  good  for  him  to  be  on  the 
alert  against  the  cajolery  of  such  a  plausible  hero  as  Beau- 
marchais often  proved  himself  to  be.  For  our  part,  we 
think  Angelucci-Hatkinson  was  the  creature  of  an 
exuberant  and  undisciplined  imagination,  and  that  Beau- 
marchais, in  spite  of  his  cleverness,  would  have  found  it 
more  difficult  to  refute  the  muddle-headed  honesty  of 
postilion  Dratz  than  to  confound  all  the  malignant  cun- 
ning of  Marin  and  his  associates  put  together.  Fortunately 
for  him,  he  was  not  called  upon  to  try,  since  he  never  knew 
of  the  existence  of  this  testimony  against  him.  Had  he 
suspected  that  his  antics  in  Germany  and  Austria  would 
ever  be  subjected  to  so  close  a  scrutiny,  he  might  have 
taken  more  trouble  to  make  it  possible  for  us  to  believe  him. 


157 


CHAPTER    XVIII 

A   MYSTERIOUS   AFFAIR 

MDE  RONAC  had  no  sooner  reached  Vienna  than 
.  he  made  his  presence  in  the  capital  known  to  the 
Empress  Maria  Teresa  in  a  letter  couched  in  the  following 
terms  : 

"  Madame, 

"  I  beg  Your  Majesty  to  believe  that  I  offer  the 
highest  proof  of  my  respect  even  in  failing  to  observe  the 
prescribed  method  of  approaching  the  royal  presence  only 
through  the  intermediary  of  the  great. 

"  I  have  hurried  night  and  day  from  the  confines  of 
Western  Europe  to  communicate  to  Your  Majesty  certain 
matters  affecting  your  happiness  and  peace  of  mind, 
which,  I  venture  to  say,  will  move  you  to  the  depths  of 
your  heart. 

"Madame, 

"  Your  Majesty  will  understand  the  importance  of 
the  secret  by  the  very  irregularity  of  the  step  I  am  taking, 
but  Your  Majesty  will  understand  even  better  how  urgent 
it  is  not  to  lose  a  moment  in  hearing  me,  if  I  say  that 
though  I  have  been  cruelly  assailed  and  desperately 
wounded  by  brigands  near  Nuremberg,  I  have  not  delayed 
a  moment,  in  spite  of  my  terrible  sufferings,  and  that  I 
reached  Vienna  by  way  of  the  Danube  only  because  the 
excruciating  pain  of  my  wounds  made  it  impossible  for  me 
to  support  the  jolting  of  my  carriage. 

"  If  Your  Majesty  should  think  this  letter  from  an  un- 
known person  attributable  to  the  feverish  delirium  of  a 
wounded  man,  I  beg  her,  more  in  her  own  interest  than 
in  mine,  graciously  to  send  a  person  of  confidence  to  me 

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A  Mysterious  Affair 

with  the  least  possible  delay.  I  will  not  divulge  my 
business  to  him,  for  this  I  can  do  to  Your  Majesty  alone, 
but  I  will  tell  him  enough  to  enable  me  to  obtain  from  Your 
Majesty  a  private  and  secret  audience  of  which  neither 
your  ministers  nor  our  ambassador  must  have  any  know- 
ledge whatever. 

"  I  beg  Your  Majesty  not  to  take  it  ill  if  I  dare  ask 
her  to  give  the  person  she  deigns  to  send,  a  note  signed 
by  herself  in  such  terms  as  these  :  *  M.  de  Ronac  may 
explain  himself  fully  to  the  person  who  delivers  this  letter. 
He  has  the  honour  of  being  in  my  confidence.' 

"  This  precaution  is  necessary  in  order  that  I  may  be 
assured  that  my  letter  has  fallen  into  no  other  hands  than 
those  of  Your  Imperial  Majesty.  Whilst  awaiting  your 
orders  at  '  The  Three  Runners,'  Saint  Michael's  Place,  near 
the  Palace,  Vienna,  I  am,  with  the  most  respectful  devotion, 
Madame, 

"  Your  Imperial  Majesty's 

"  Most  humble  and  most  obedient  Servant, 

'*  DE  Ronac. 

"  Vienna.     This  20th  August,  1774." 

So,  on  his  own  confession,  he  had  "  hurried  night 
and  day  from  the  confines  of  Western  Europe,"  not  to 
arrest  the  defaulting  Israelite,  but  to  make  a  communi- 
cation to  the  Empress,  affecting  the  honour  of  her  daughter. 
Queen  Marie  Antoinette.  This  fact,  in  conjunction  with 
the  care  he  had  taken  when  in  London  to  engage  a  lackey 
who  understood  German,  and,  above  all,  his  persistence 
in  demanding  from  Louis  XVI.  a  personal,  written  com- 
mission (which  could  be  of  no  use  to  him  in  the  negotia- 
tions for  the  suppression  of  the  libel,  but  was  an  essential 
guarantee  of  his  status  in  a  foreign  Court),  serves  only  to 
strengthen  the  suspicion  that  he  had,  from  the  very  first, 
planned  to  make  this  journey  to  Austria — Jew  or  no 
Jew,  brigands  or  no  brigands— in  the  hope  of  obtaining 
a  secret  interview  with  the  Empress  Maria  Teresa,  solely 
with  a  view  to  securing  her  testimony  as  to  the  tran- 
scendent services  he  had  performed  on  behalf  of  her 
daughter. 

The  Empress  at  once  guessing  that  the  stranger's 
business  concerned  Marie  Antoinette,  requested  the  Count 

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von  Seilern  to  find  out  what  the  writer  wanted.  Maria 
Teresa  having  provided  the  Count  with  the  stipulated 
autograph  letter,  he  immediately  sent  for  Beaumarchais. 
But  the  latter,  seeing  that  his  bait  was  taking,  excused 
himself  from  at  once  answering  the  summons  on  account 
of  illness  "  caused  through  spitting  blood,  from  which  he 
had  suffered  severely  ever  since  his  misfortune  in  the 
wood  near  Nuremberg."  It  will  be  noted  that  he  had 
changed  the  nature  of  his  malady.  This  was  rendered 
necessary  by  the  fact  that  his  cuts  had  healed  more  rapidly 
than  he  had  anticipated,  and  he  now  looked  less  like  the 
dashing  hero  of  an  encounter  with  brigands  than  the 
pitiful  exemplar  of  astonishingly  incompetent  shaving. 
Two  hours  later,  however,  M.  de  Ronac  had  the  honour 
of  offering  in  person  his  respectful  homage  to  His  Ex- 
cellency the  Governor  of  Lower  Austria. 

The  Count  listened  attentively  whilst  the  interesting 
Frenchman  told  his  tale  in  the  vivid  narrative  style  of 
which  he  was  such  a  master.  He  spared  no  detail,  from 
"the  moment  when  his  royal  master  honoured  him  with 
a  confidential  mission  to  England  and  Holland,  which 
(as  luck  would  have  it)  also  necessitated  his  journey  to 
Vienna,  to  the  almost  fatal  dagger-thrust  and  his 
miraculous  delivery  from  the  hands  of  the  cut-throats  of 
the  Leichtenholtz.  But  at  this  point  he  stopped  abruptly. 
He  was  not  at  liberty  to  say  more  :  the  rest  of  his  story 
could  be  related  only  to  the  Empress  in  person  and  alone, 
for  it  concerned  Her  Majesty  the  Queen  of  France.  Time 
pressed,  and  he  requested  an  immediate  interview  Vvdth 
the  Empress,  reinforcing  his  demand  by  allowing  Seilern 
to  glance  at  the  precious  royal  commission  in  its  gold 
case,  still  twisted  and  damaged  by  the  assassin's  knife. 
By  his  own  avowal  he  had  hitherto  made  no  use  of  the 
royal  authority,  and  this  was  also  the  first  occasion  on 
which  he  had  revealed  his  identity. 

The  pair  now  proceeded  to  the  palace  at  Schonbrunn, 
the  Count  to  present  his  report,  and  M.  de  Ronac  to  be 
at  hand  if  wanted.  The  latter  was  almost  immediately 
admitted  to  the  royal  presence.  The  Empress  received 
him  very  graciously,  and  for  three  and  a  half  hours  listened 
to  the  animated  narrative  of  the  adventures  and  sufferings 
of  this  intrepid  champion  of  her   daughter's  fair  name. 

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A  Mysterious  Affair 

M.  de  Ronac,  at  Maria  Teresa's  request,  then  read  the 
unique  example  of  the  shameful  monograph  which,  as  he 
was  careful  to  tell  her,  he  had  procured  at  the  peril  of  his 
life,  and  earnestly  besought  her  to  secure  the  arrest  of  the 
horrid  Jew,  who  was  the  cause  of  all  the  mischief  and 
had  now,  he  had  reason  to  believe,  fled  to  Venice,  his 
native  town. 

On  the  completion  of  the  reading,  the  Empress 
expressed  a  wish  to  retain  the  document  in  order  to  con- 
sider her  best  course  of  action — a  desire  which,  under 
the  circumstances,  Beaumarchais  was  no  doubt  right 
in  interpreting  as  a  command.  On  the  termination  of 
the  interview,  therefore,  he  left  the  brochure  with  her, 
and  appears  never  to  have  seen  it  again. 

Maria  Teresa's  opinion  of  the  libel  is  preserved  for  us 
in  a  letter  addi^essed  to  Mercy-Argenteau,  her  ambassador 
at  the  Court  of  France,  immediately  after  the  interview 
with  Beaumarchais.  This  communication,  which  appears 
to  have  escaped  other  writers  on  this  subject,  most  of 
whom  express  their  doubt  that  the  Empress  ever  saw 
the  pamphlet  in  its  entirety,  if  at  all,  is  in  the  following 
terms  : 

"  Nothing  more  atrocious  has  ever  been  published  : 
it  fills  my  heart  with  the  utmost  contempt  for  this  nation, 
devoid  alike  of  religion,  morals  and  feelings." 

Her  intemperate  language  will  perhaps  be  thought 
pardonable  in  a  mother  when  we  explain  the  nature  of 
the  treatise.  The  cardinal  point  of  the  writer's  argument 
was  that  Marie  Antoinette,  being  convinced  from  her 
intimate  knowledge  of  the  King's  abnormal  temperament 
that  he  would  never  have  children,  was  nevertheless 
animated  by  a  keen  desire  to  keep  the  throne  in  the  event 
of  his  death.  To  this  end,  boldly  asserted  the  pamph- 
leteer, "  this  ambitious  and  pleasure-loving  woman  will 
flinch  from  nothing."  He,  therefore,  urged  all  claimants 
to  the  succession  of  the  French  throne,  and  especially 
Louis  XVI.  himself,  "  to  beware  of  the  resolute  and 
abominable  stratagems  of  the  Austrian  woman.  .  .  . 
Remember  whose  daughter  she  is,  and  that  in  the  absence 
of  other  counsellors  the  latter  (Maria  Teresa)  will  be  her 
ablest  accomplice  in  such  machinations." 

Now,  it  is  our  conviction  that  Maria  Teresa  had 
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Figaro  :   The  Life  of  Beau  mar  chais 

instantly  made  up  her  mind  that  the  treatise  which  the 
enigmatical  Frenchman  had  read  was  a  unique  copy, 
and,  having  deliberately  bluffed  him  into  giving  it  up  to 
her,  had  no  intention  whatever  of  relinquishing  it.  Beau- 
marchais,  we  think,  had  failed  to  foresee  that  the  Empress 
would  want  to  keep  it,  and  he  thus  found  himself  deprived 
of  the  only  tangible  proof  he  could  bring  to  M.  de  Sartine 
of  the  successful  accomplishment  of  his  mission.  Nor, 
under  the  circumstances,  could  he  formally  ask  for  its 
return. 

When,  at  last,  he  realized  this,  he  wTote  a  long  letter 
to  the  Empress,  expressing  great  repugnance  to  sub- 
mitting the  pamphlet  in  its  entirety  to  so  young  and 
inexperienced  a  man  as  Louis  XVI.,  and  urged  her  to 
place  facilities  in  his  way  to  print  a  single  copy,  which  he 
himself  undertook  to  expurgate  of  all  malevolent  insinua- 
tions against  the  young  Queen.  On  the  firm  refusal  of 
Maria  Teresa  to  entertain  such  a  suggestion,  Beaumarchais 
returned  again  and  again  to  the  charge  in  letter  after 
letter  to  the  Count  von  Seilern. 

This  persistence  in  asking  to  be  allowed  to  falsify 
the  document,  we  consider  to  have  been  merely  a  ruse 
to  obtain  a  copy  to  replace  the  one  he  had  lost,  but  it 
forms  the  principal  evidence  of  Messrs.  Huot,  Fournier 
and  others,  for  accusing  Beaumarchais  himself  of  the 
authorship  of  the  hbel,  and  these  writers  are  of  the  opinion 
that  in  reading  it  to  the  Empress  he  was  frightened  at 
the  import  of  the  charges  he  had  brought  against  Marie 
Antoinette,  and  hoped  by  this  means  to  secure  an  oppor- 
tunity of  destroying  the  original  and  substituting  the 
expurgated  copy.  It  is  but  fair  to  add  that  von  Arneth, 
who  claims  to  be  the  only  modern  author  who  had  examined 
the  treatise  in  detail,  hesitatingly  acquits  Beaumarchais 
of  this  charge  on  the  ground  of  insufficient  evidence. 

The  Imperial  Chancellor,  Prince  von  Kaunitz,  into 
whose  hands  the  affair  now  passed,  had  no  such  irresolu- 
tion. This  astute  diplomat  had  been  in  Paris  at  the 
time  of  the  Goezman  trial,  and  knew  the  man  with 
whom  he  had  to  deal.  Having  received  Seilern' s  account 
of  the  interview  with  the  Empress,  carefully  examined 
the  evidence  of  postilion  Dratz  and  Chief  Superintendent 
Fezer,    and   having    failed,    after    the    most    exhaustive 

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A  Mysterious  Affair 

inquiries,  to  discover  anybody  who  had  seen  either  the 
wandering  Jew  or  the  elusive  brigands,  he  quickly  decided 
that  the  Frenchman  was  an  impostor,  and  had  shame- 
fully duped  his  Imperial  Mistress.  The  result  was  that 
M.  de  Ronac  had  scarcely  reached  his  lodgings,  after 
what  he  considered  a  second  most  satisfactory  interview 
with  the  Empress,  who  had  elated  him  by  expressing 
some  concern  for  his  health,  than  Seilern's  secretary 
presented  himself,  accompanied  by  two  officers  and  eight 
grenadiers  with  fixed  bayonets,  intimating  that  until 
further  orders  he  must  consider  himself  a  prisoner  of  state. 
His  valise  with  all  his  papers  and  the  famous  gold  case 
containing  the  King's  autograph,  were  all  taken  from  him, 
and  sealed  in  his  presence. 

M'ith  some  dignity  Beaumarchais  protested  vigorously 
against  this  outrage  on  the  person  of  a  royal  messenger 
which,  he  asserted,  might  have  very  disagreeable  con- 
sequences to  those  responsible  for  it.  But  all  his  heroics 
were  in  vain.  He  was  kept  a  close  prisoner  for  thirty- 
one  days.  Indeed,  we  can  scarcely  doubt  that  his  sagacity 
in  obtaining  the  signature  of  Louis  to  his  commission 
alone  saved  him  from  spending  the  remainder  of  his  days 
in  an  Austrian  prison. 

Meanwhile,  the  undoubted  authenticity  of  the  King's 
mandate  moved  Kaunitz  to  write  immediately  to  de  Sartine 
to  inquire  what  should  be  done  with  his  prisoner.  After 
some  delay  the  Lieutenant  of  Police,  deeming  it  imprudent 
to  disavow  his  agent,  put  the  best  face  on  a  difficult  situa- 
tion by  acknowledging  that  Beaumarchais  was  his  man, 
defended  his  mysterious  actions,  and  requested  that  he 
might  be  at  once  released  and  allowed  to  return  to  Paris. 

Thereupon,  Kaunitz  gracefully  took  upon  himself  all 
responsibility  for  the  unfortunate  misunderstanding, 
though  it  is  perfectly  clear  that  he  firmly  adhered  to  the 
original  opinion  he  had  formed  of  this  amazing  adventure. 
"  It  seems  to  me  in  this  business,"  he  wrote  to  Mercy- 
Argenteau,  on  the  20th  September,  "  that  apart  from  his 
notorious  moral  laxity,  M.  de  Sartine  may  have  some 
personal  interest  in  wishing  to  evade  the  well-founded 
reproaches  which  might  be  made  against  him  for  recom- 
mending to  the  King  such  a  person  as  M.  de  Beaumarchais 
for  so  delicate  a  mission,  and  that  this  may  well  be  the 

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principal  reason  which  induced  him,  not  only  to  acknow- 
ledge this  man,  but  even  to  undertake  his  defence." 

For  the  rest,  he  had  no  hesitation  whatever  in  attri- 
buting the  calumny  to  Beaumarchais  himself,  for,''  Sup- 
posing," he  wrote  further  to  Mercy- Argent eau,  "  that 
Beaumarchais  is  the  author  of  the  libel — as  the  whole 
history  of  his  private  life  and  his  conduct  throughout  this 
affair  might  well  lead  us  to  suspect — all  that  he  claims  to 
have  done,  as  also  the  real  motives  of  his  actions  and  of 
the  ridiculous  romance  with  which  he  has  regaled  us, 
become  as  clear  as  daylight. 

"  On  this  supposition,  in  order  to  turn  suspicion  from 
himself  of  such  a  flagrant  crime  of  lese-majeste,  what  was 
more  natural  than  that  he  should  himself  undertake  the 
mission,  or  even,  perhaps  by  some  indirect  means,  get 
himself  nominated  for  it  ?  .  .  . 

"  Having  succeeded,  he  would  of  course  try  to  turn  it 
to  his  own  advantage  and,  to  this  end,  being  an  extremely 
clever  story-teller,  he  fabricated,  if  not  all,  at  least  a  great 
deal  of  his  adventures,  in  order  to  make  it  appear  that  he 
was  a  man  whose  energy,  astuteness  and  courage  merited 
the  highest  reward." 

Even  the  almost  impenetrable  fog  of  his  style  is  unable 
to  obscure  the  lucidity  of  the  Chancellor's  reasoning. 
Assuming,  as  he  says,  that  Beaumarchais  was  himself 
the  author,  or  the  accomplice  of  the  writer  of  the  pamphlet, 
the  mystery  is  explained  from  beginning  to  end. 

Before  speeding  his  umvilling  guest  on  his  way  home, 
Kaunitz  suggested  that  it  would  be  becoming  in  his  Royal 
Mistress  to  accord  M.  de  Beaumarchais  a  solatium  of 
a  thousand  ducats  (about  a  thousand  pounds).  This  the 
Frenchman  indignantly  refused.  What  did  they  take  him 
for  :  an  adventurer  ?  He  did  not  want  money  ;  all  he 
wanted  was  to  be  dealt  with  according  to  his  station,  and 
they  had  treated  him  as  though  he  were  a  foreign  criminal 
— him,  the  confidential  agent  of  the  King  and  Queen  of 
France  !  It  was  intolerable  !  At  last  Kaunitz  somewhat 
soothed  his  ruffled  feelings  by  suggesting  to  the  Empress 
that  he  might  buy  a  ring  with  the  money,  and  that  Her 
Imperial  Majesty  would  allow  him  to  wear  it  as  a  reward 
for  his  distinguished  services. 

Nor  was  Kaunitz  by  any  means  alone  in  viewing  the 


A  Mysterious  Affair 

character  of  Beaumarchais  and  the  narrative  of  his  adven- 
tures with  profound  mistrust.  The  following  lampoon, 
in  a  hitherto  unpublished  MS.,  is  doubtless  one  of  many 
witty  but  scurrilous  attacks  made  upon  him  at  this  time  : 

"EPITAPHE  DU  BARON  DE  RONAC  EN  FRANCONNIE. 

"  Cy-git  qui  fut  de  bonne  taille 
Qui  S9avait  danser  et  chanter, 
Faisait  des  vers  vaille  qui  vaille, 
Et  les  S9avait  bien  reciter. 

"  Sa  race  etant  sans  antiquaille 
Ne  pouvait  des  heros  compter, 
Pourtant  il  eut  donne  Bataille 
Si  Ton  avait  voulu  tater. 

"  II  parlait  fort  bien  de  la  Guerre 
Des  Cieux,  du  Globe,  de  la  Terre, 
Du  Droit  Civil  et  Droit  canon  ; 
Et  connaissait  assez  les  choses 
Par  leurs  effets  et  par  leurs  causes  : 
Etait-il  honnete  homme  ?     Ha  !   Non  !  " 

A  note  at  the  foot  of  this  pleasantry  explains  that 
"  The  Baron  de  Ronac,  being  attacked  by  two  robbers 
in  the  Forest  of  Nuremberg,  killed  three  of  them." 

In  conclusion,  let  us  briefly  recall  the  situation  in 
which  Beaumarchais  found  himself  at  the  beginning  of 
the  new  reign.  It  is  well  to  remember,  in  judging  this 
episode,  that  on  his  accession  to  the  throne  Louis  was 
twenty  years  old  whilst  Marie  Antoinette  was  nineteen, 
and  with  youthful  downrightness  they  had  both  expressed 
their  irreconcilable  hostility  to  an  exceptionally  gifted 
man,  who  had  never  done  them  any  harm,  and  had  just 
rendered  to  their  grandfather  a  notable  service  in  which 
many  others  had  failed.  Moreover,  this  man  was  suffering 
under  what  he,  and  vast  numbers  of  cultured  people  at 
home  and  abroad,  considered  a  flagrant  injustice  ;  and, 
in  the  face  of  the  sovereign's  open  ill-will,  the  victim's 
whole  future  was  irretrievably  ruined.  This  man  was 
one  of  the  most  audacious  and  original  spirits  of  the  cen- 
tury, and  was  no  more  overburdened  with  scruples  than 
most  of  the  men  among  whom  he  lived.  Desperate  cases 
call  for  desperate  remedies  ;  and  we  believe  that  constant 
brooding  over  his  very  real  grievances  at  last  betrayed 
him  into  resorting  to  the  insidious  arts  of  the  blackmailer. 
In  Morande  (a  very  precious  scoundrel,  whose  one  good 

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point,  so  fax  as  we  have  been  able  to  discover,  was  his 
admirably  clear  and  elegant  handwriting),  with  whom  he 
ever  afterwards  remained  on  the  most  intimate  terms, 
he  had  a  tool  ready  to  his  hand.  What  could  be  more 
natural  (being  the  man  he  was)  than  that  he  should  make 
use  of  the  rascal's  peculiar  talents.  We  believe  he  did, 
and  that  with  the  probable  connivance  of  de  Sartine 
himself,  they  concocted  the  whole  imbroglio  between 
them,  perhaps  sharing  the  spoils.  Remember  that  Beau- 
marchais was  the  creator  of  Figaro,  the  most  ingenious 
intriguer  in  hterature.  "  A  httle  more  running  to  and 
fro  on  other  people's  affairs,"  exclaims  Frontin,  the  amusing 
but  rascally  valet  in  Tur caret,  ''  a  few  more  worries  and 
troubles,  and  I  shall  attain  a  state  of  ease  and  comfort  ! 
Then  my  mind  will  be  at  peace,  and  how  happy  and  con- 
tented I  shall  be  !  There  will  be  only  my  conscience  to 
set  at  rest." 

It  is  but  fair  to  add  that  Louis  and  Marie  Antoinette 
appear  to  have  been  satisfied  with  the  services  of  Beau- 
marchais, for  they  did  not  hesitate  to  employ  him  again  ; 
but  their  mistrust  had  been  so  profound  that  we  are  con- 
strained to  think  that  they  were  afraid  of  him  and  hoped 
by  this  means  to  concihate  him.  As  for  M.  de  Sartine, 
his  enemies  had  no  sooner  succeeded  in  procuring  his 
transfer  from  the  Ministry  of  Police  to  the  less  coveted 
Ministry  of  the  Navy  than  he  was  assailed  with  honest 
doubts,  which  he  confided  to  Mercy-Argentau  who,  in 
his  turn,  communicated  the  conversation  to  Maria  Teresa  : 

"  He  admitted  to  me,"  wrote  the  Austrian  Ambassador, 
"  that  he  was  more  and  more  worried  by  the  suspicion 
that  Beaumarchais  had  himself  hatched  the  audacious 
Hbel,  and  had  afterwards  come  forward  to  denounce  the 
plot." 


i66 


CHAPTER   XIX 

"  THE    BARBER   OF   SEVILLE  " 

ONE  of  the  first  results  of  the  King's  satisfaction  with 
Beaumarchais  was  the  removal  of  the  veto  on  the 
performance  of  his  singularly  unlucky  play. 

The  Barber  of  Seville,  or  The  Useless  Precaution,  was 
written  in  1772  as  a  comic  opera  in  four  acts.  The  music 
was  adapted  by  the  author  from  the  folk  and  other  songs 
we  have  seen  him  dihgently  collecting  whilst  in  Spain. 
The  musical  attainments  of  Beaumarchais  were  hardly 
more  than  those  of  an  unusually  competent  amateur,  and 
it  was  left  to  the  genius  of  Rossini  and  Mozart  to  set  the 
seal  of  immortal  melody  on  the  two  plays  by  which  he  is 
remembered.  As  for  the  Ubretto,  although  Beaumarchais 
had  an  extraordinary  faciUty  for  rhyming  (which,  indeed, 
he  shared  with  his  whole  family  except  his  wife),  we  doubt 
whether  he  wrote  a  Hne  of  poetry  in  his  Ufe.  He  himself 
was  aware  of  this  disabiUty,  for  he  used  pleasantly  to  say  : 
"  I  am  the  first  poet  of  Paris — entering  from  the  Porte 
Saint  Antoine." 

The  work  was  originally  written  for,  and  offered  to, 
the  Comedie  Italienne,  and  promptly  declined.  "  This 
refusal,"  says  Gudin,  ''  was  due  to  the  fact  that  the  principal 
actor,  Clairval,  had  started  life  as  a  barber,  and  was,  there- 
fore, disincUned  to  expose  himself  on  the  stage  to  the 
pleasantries  of  those  who  remembered  the  days  when 
he  actually  pHed  the  razor  of  Figaro  for  a  livehhood." 
The  story  is  interesting,  but  is  perhaps  an  example  of 
esprit  d'escalier  on  the  part  of  the  disappointed  author. 
In  the  face  of  this  rebuff  he  immediately  set  about  trans- 
'  forming  the  opera  into  a  comedy  with  an  eye  on  the 
Theatre  Frangais. 

167 


f 


Figaro  :    The  Life  of  Beaumarchais 

WTien  completed,  the  piece  was  at  once  accepted  by 
the  premier  theatre,  and,  having  received  the  approbation 
of  the  censor,  Marin,  was  to  have  been  produced  in 
February,  1773,  but  the  dramatist's  grotesque  quarrel 
with  the  Due  de  Chaulnes,  immediately  followed  by  the 
equally  bizarre  Goezman  trial,  indefinitety  postponed  its 
representation.  The  extraordinary  success  of  the  Beau- 
marchais memoirs  caused  the  company  of  the  Theatre 
Frangais  to  deem  the  moment  opportune  for  producing 
the  much  advertised  comedy.  Their  application  being 
granted,  the  play  was  announced  for  Saturda}^  the  12th 
February,  1774.  "  All  the  boxes  were  sold,"  says  Grimm, 
"  for  the  first  five  performances,"  when  on  Thursday, 
the  loth,  an  order  came  again  forbidding  the  play — this 
was  the  day  on  which  Beaumarchais  published  the  fourth 
and  most  brilhant  of  his  pamphlets.  The  reason  for  this 
sudden  prohibition  was  that  the  piece  was  currently 
reported  to  be  full  of  satirical  allusions  to  his  late  process 
and  witticisms  at  the  expense  of  the  ruling  classes.  Beau- 
marchais hastened  to  point  out  that  since  the  text  of  the 
piece  had  been  in  the  hands  of  the  Lieutenant  of  Police 
for  over  a  year  these  rumours  could  not  possibly  be  true. 
But  all  was  in  vain.  It  looked  as  if  The  Barber  of  Seville 
was  doomed  never  to  see  the  footlights. 

Such  was  the  position  when  the  author  set  out  on 
his  secret  missions.  Upon  his  return  from  Vienna  in 
December,  1774,  he  at  once  brought  pressure  to  bear 
upon  the  authorities,  and  at  last  obtained  the  ardently 
desired  permission.  But  meanwhile,  the  situation  had 
changed,  and  he  no  longer  felt  himself  bound  by  the 
assurance  he  had  given  the  year  before  ;  and  since  the 
comedy  had  been  so  long  prohibited  on  account  of  allusions 
v.hich  it  did  not  originally  contain,  he  now  made  up 
for  the  omission  by  inserting  not  only  those  jovial  and 
searching  criticisms  of  the  existing  social  order  for 
which  the  play  is  remarkable,  but  overloaded  the  text 
with  the  equivocal  jokes,  the  coarse  buffoonery,  and  the 
fescennine  humour  proper  to  the  ancient  Gallic  farce. 
He  could  not  bear  to  forgo  a  single  sally  of  his  ex- 
uberant and  undisciplined  wit.  This  is  always  a  mistake, 
for  the  Muse  is  not  always  at  home,  even  when  her 
favourites  call  upon  her.     Moreover,  he  unwisety  divided 

168 


J.  F.  La  Harpe. 

From  a  lithograph  by  Delpech. 


y 


96. 


[To  face  p.   i68. 


"The  Barber  of  Seville  '' 

the  third  act  into  two,  lengthening  the  piece  into  five 
acts. 

"It  is  always  difficult,"  wrote  La  Harpe,  "  to  fulfil 
great  expectations.  The  piece  seemed  rather  farcical, 
and  its  wearisome  prolixity,  its  jokes  in  exceedingly  bad 
taste,  and  its  questionable  morahty  combined  to  disgust 
and  revolt  the  audience."* 

The  Barber  of  Seville  was  presented  for  the  first  time 
on  the  23rd  February,  1775,  and  fell  flat. 

But  a  work  of  art,  like  a  good  deed,  is  an  act  of  faith, 
and  faith  even  in  its  lowest  form,  self-confidence,  is  capable 
of  all  things — in  reason.  Beaumarchais  had  this  kind 
of  faith  in  a  superlative  degree.  Convinced  of  the  essential 
merit  of  his  work,  he  shut  himself  in  his  study  and  recast 
the  whole  piece,  reducing  it  to  its  original  four  acts, 
chastening  it  of  the  most  scurrilous  passages,  and  within 
a  day  and  a  night  transformed  a  very  faulty  play  (which 
had  taken  him  two  years  of  leisure  to  write)  into  a  master- 
piece of  light  comedy.  "  The  Barber  of  Seville,  in  its  final 
form,"  remarked  La  Harpe,  "  is  the  best  constructed  and 
the  best  written  of  all  the  dramatic  works  of  Beau- 
marchais," and  we  are  inclined  to  agree  with  him.  A 
dismal  failure  on  the  Friday,  it  was  revived  on  the  Sunday, 
and  has  held  the  stage  ever  since. 

We  have  deemed  it  expedient  to  translate  the  saHent 
passages  of  this  piece,  and  to  summarize  the  rest,  in  order 
that  the  reader  may  be  in  a  position,  not  only  to  judge 
its  worth  for  himself,  but  to  follow  the  many  allusions  to 
the  life  and  times  of  Beaumarchais  with  which  it  abounds. 
He  will  also  be  able  to  see  how  far  the  author  may  be 
identified  with  the  character,  maxims  and  opinions  of 
Figaro. 

The  plot  of  The  Barber  of  Seville  is  not  a  new  one  : 
it  is  the  time-honoured  theme  of  an  elderly  and  amorous 
guardian  (Bartholo),  who  hopes  to  marry  and  possess 
himself  of  the  fortune  of  his  ward  (Rosine),  and  how  his 
schemes  are  all  brought  to  naught  by  the  intervention  of 
a  young  and  handsome  lover  (Count  Almaviva),  aided  by 
Figaro,  the  wittiest  and  most  resourceful  of  all  valets. 

The  scene  opens  with  the  Count,  disguised  as  a  priest, 

*  La  Haxpe,  Correspondance  Litteraire,  T.  i.,  p.  99. 
169 


Figaro  :   The  Life  of  Beaumarchais 

pacing  to  and  fro  before  Bartholo's  house,  in  the  hope  of 
catching  sight  of  Rosine,  who  has  attracted  his  attention 
whilst  in  Madrid  with  her  guardian.  He  reflects  aloud 
that  he  is  tired  of  facile  conquests,  and  "it's  so  sweet  to 
be  loved  for  oneself."  At  this  moment  Figaro  enters, 
with  a  guitar  slung  over  his  shoulder,  and  paper  and  pencil 
in  hand,  in  the  throes  of  composition.  He  gaily  sings 
the  lines  of  his  song,  as  he  sets  them  down.  .  .  . 

"  '  Generous  wine  and  idleness 
Shall  e'er  dispute  my  heart  !  ' 

"  Well,  no  !  they  don't  dispute  :  they  reign  together 
quite  peaceably. 

"  '  Shall  ever  share  my  heart.' 

"Is  it  -right  to  say  '  share  ?  '  Well,  thank  God,  we 
makers  of  comic  operas  need  not  be  so  particular.  Nowa- 
days, what  is  not  worth  saying,  we  sing. 

"  '  Generous  wine  and  idleness 
Shall  ever  share  my  heart.' 

"  I  would  like  to  end  with  somethmg  fine,  brilliant, 
sparkling,  which  would  look  hke  an  idea. 

"  '  Shall  ever  share  my  heart : 
If  one  inspires  my  tenderness 
The  other  is  my  joy.' 

"  Confound  it  !  that's  bathos.  That's  not  it.  I  want 
an  antithesis. 

"  '  If  one  is  my  mistress 
The  other  .  .  .  ' 

"  Egad  !    I've  got  it ! 

"  '  The  other  shall  be  my  maid.' 

"  Bravo,  Figaro  ! 

"  Ha  !  wait  till  we  have  the  accompaniment,  then 
we  shall  see,  gentlemen  of  the  cabal,  if  I  don't  know  what 
I'm  talking  about  !  " 

Here  the  Count  and  Figaro  recognize  each  other. 

Count.     I  do  beheve  it's  that  rascal  Figaro  ! 
170 


**  The  Barber  of  Seville  ** 

Figaro.     It  is,  my  lord. 

Count.     You  scoundrel !   if  you  speak  a  word.  ... 

Figaro.  Yes.  I  recognize  you,  the  same  familiar 
kindness  with  which  you  have  always  honoured  me. 

Count.  I  did  not  recognize  you  at  all.  You  have 
become  so  big  and  fat. 

Figaro.     What  can  you  expect  ?     It's  through  misery. 

Count.  Poor  Uttle  man  !  But  what  are  you  doing 
in  Seville  ?  I  thought  I  recommended  you  to  a  post  in 
the  government. 

Figaro.     I  obtained  it,  my  lord,  and  my  gratitude.  .  .  . 

Count.  Call  me  Lindor.  Can't  you  see  by  my  disguise 
that  I  don't  want  to  be  recognized  ? 

Figaro.     I  will  go. 

Count.  On  the  contrary.  I  am  waiting  for  something 
here,  and  two  men  chatting  together  are  less  suspicious 
than  one  walking  to  and  fro.  Let  us  appear  to  be  chatting*. 
Well,  what  about  this  position  ? 

Figaro.  The  minister,  having  considered  your  excel- 
lency's recommendation,  at  once  appointed  me  apothecary's 
boy. 

Count.     To  the  military  hospitals  ? 

Figaro.     No.     In  the  stables  of  Andalusia. 

Count  (laughing).     A  fine  beginning  ! 

Figaro.  The  post  was  not  so  bad,  for  having  the  dress- 
ings and  drugs  in  my  charge,  I  often  sold  the  men  excellent 
horse  medicines. 

Count.     Which  killed  His  Majesty's  subjects  ? 

Figaro.  Ha  !  Ha  !  Well,  there  is  no  universal  remedy 
which  has  sometimes  failed  to  cure  Galicians,  Catalans  and 
Auvergnats. 

Count.     Then  why  did  you  leave  ? 

Figaro.  Leave,  indeed  !  Somebody  slandered  me  to 
the  powers. 

"Envy  with  clutching  fingers,  and  pale  livid  face." 

Count.  Oh  !  for  pity's  sake,  my  good  fellow  !  Do  you 
dabble  in  verses  too  ? 

Figaro.  That  is  just  the  cause  of  my  misfortune,  my 
lord.  When  it  was  reported  to  the  minister  that  I  was 
making,  if  I  may  say  so,  some  rather  neat  little  garlands  of 
verse  to  Chloris ;  that  I  was  sending  riddles  to  the  journals ; 

171 


Figaro  :   The  Life  of  Beaumarchais 

that  madrigals  of  my  composition  were  becoming  all  the 
rage  ;  in  short,  when  it  was  found  that  I  was  getting  into 
print  everywhere,  he  took  the  matter  tragically,  and  dis- 
missed me  from  the  service  on  the  pretext  that  a  love  of 
letters  is  incompatible  with  the  spirit  of  business. 

Count.  Powerfully  reasoned !  But  did  you  not 
represent  to  him  .  .  . 

Figaro.  To  tell  the  truth,  I  thought  myself  only  too 
happy  to  be  forgotten,  being  convinced  that  the  great  do  us 
sufficient  good  when  they  do  us  no  harm. 

Count.  You  do  not  tell  the  whole  story.  I  seem  to 
remember  that  when  you  were  in  my  service,  you  were 
rather  a  bad  lot. 

Figaro.  Good  God,  my  lord  ! — you  expect  the  poor  to 
be  without  faults  ? 

Count.     Idle,  dissolute  .  .  . 

Figaro.  Considering  the  virtues  demanded  of  a  servant, 
does  your  excellency  know  many  masters  worthy  of  being 
valets  ? 

Count.     Not  so  bad.     So  you  retired  to  this  city  ? 

Figaro.  No,  not  at  once.  On  my  return  from  Madrid, 
I  tried  my  literary  talents  again,  and  the  theatre  seemed  to 
me  a  field  of  honour. 

Count.     God-a-mercy ! 

Figaro.  Really,  I  do  not  know  why  I  did  not  have  the 
greatest  success,  for  I  filled  the  pit  with  the  most  excellent 
workers,— the  most  mutton-fisted  fellows  I  could  find  .  .  . 
and  before  the  performance,  the  cafes  seemed  very  well 
disposed  towards  me.     But  the  efforts  of  the  cabal  .  .  . 

Count.  Ah  !  the  cabal !  I  seem  to  have  heard  that 
story  before  ! 

Figaro.  It's  the  fact,  anyway.  Why  not  ?  They 
hissed  me,  but  if  I  could  only  get  them  together  again  ! 

Count.  You  would  bore  them  to  death  by  way  of 
revenge  ? 

Figaro.     Zounds  !     I'd  give  it  'em  hot ! 

Count.  You  swear  !  Do  you  know  that  in  the  Courts 
you  have  only  twenty-four  hours  in  which  to  curse  your 
judges  ? 

Figaro.  Yes,  but  you  have  twenty- four  years  in  the 
theatre  :  in  fact,  life  is  too  short  to  exhaust  such  resent- 
ment. 

173 


**  The  Barber  of  Seville  *' 

Count.  Your  exhilarating  anger  does  me  good.  But 
you  have  not  told  me  what  caused  you  to  leave  Madrid. 

Figaro.  My  good  angel,  your  excellency,  since  I  am 
happy  enough  to  find  my  old  master  again.  Seeing  that  in 
Madrid  the  republic  of  letters  is  a  republic  of  wolves, 
always  at  each  others'  throats,  and  that,  dehvered  over  to 
the  contempt  to  which  this  ridiculous  obstinacy  leads  them, 
all  the  insects,  gnats,  midges,  critics,  mosquitoes  {marin- 
gouins)*,  the  envious,  journalists,  booksellers,  censors,  and 
in  fact  everything  capable  of  chnging  to  the  hide  of  un- 
happy men  of  letters,  succeed  in  tearing  and  sucking  away 
the  little  substance  left  to  them  ;  worn  out  with  writing, 
weary  of  myself,  disgusted  with  others,  swallowed  up  by 
debts  and  with  empty  pockets  ;  finally  convinced  that  the 
certain  revenue  of  the  razor  is  preferable  to  the  empty 
honours  of  the  pen,  I  left  Madrid  ;  and  my  baggage  slung 
over  my  shoulder,  philosophically  journeying  through  the 
two  Galicias,  La  Mancha,  Estremadura,  Sierra-Morena, 
and  Andalusia,  welcomed  in  one  town,  imprisoned  in 
another,  and  everywhere  superior  to  events  ;  praised  by 
some,  blamed  by  others  ;  helping  forward  the  good  time 
and  gaily  supporting  the  bad,  twitting  the  fools  and  defying 
the  wicked  ;  laughing  at  my  misery  and  shaving  every- 
body ; — you  see  me,  at  last  estabhshed  in  Seville,  and  ready 
once  more  to  serve  your  excellency  in  everything  it  may 
please  you  to  order. 

Count.     Who  taught  you  such  a  gay  philosophy  ? 

Figaro.  Close  acquaintance  with  misfortune.  I  am 
always  in  a  hurry  to  laugh  at  everything  for  fear  of  being 
constrained  to  weep. 

Bartholo  and  Rosine  now  appear  at  a  window  on  the 
first  story,  the  latter  holding  a  paper  in  her  hand.  Her 
suspicious  guardian  wants  to  know  what  it  is.  Only  a  few 
couplets  from  The  Useless  Precaution,  which  her  singing 
master  had  given  her  yesterday.  What  is  this  Useless 
Precaution?  It  is  the  new  comedy.  "Oh!"  exclaims 
Bartholo,  "  another  of  those  dramas  in  the  foolish  new 
style.     Well,  the  journals  and  the  authorities  between  them 

*  A  dig  at  Marin.  The  whole  scene  obviously  pictures  his  own  experiences, 
and  is  quite  unceremoniously  dragged  in  here,  with  a  superb  contempt  for 
the  rules  of  the  game. 

173 


Figaro  :   The  Life  of  Beaumarchais 

will  avenge  us  ! "  Rosine  protests  against  his  constant 
decrying  of  the  new  age.  "  Pardon  me,"  says  Bartholo, 
"  but  what  has  it  produced  that  we  should  praise  it  ? 
FoUies  of  all  sorts  :  liberty  of  thought,  gravitation,  electri- 
city, religious  toleration,  inoculation,  quinine,  the  En- 
cyclopaedia, and  dramas  ..." 

At  this  point  Rosine  suddenly  drops  her  paper  (which  is 
of  course  a  letter  to  her  youthful  admirer),  and  sends 
Bartholo  to  look  for  it,  but  before  he  can  get  downstairs, 
Rosine  has  signalled  to  the  Count  to  pick  it  up  and  make  off. 
On  reaching  a  place  of  safety,  the  Count  reads  aloud  the 
letter  which  is  in  these  terms  :  "  Your  attentions  excite  my 
curiosity.  As  soon  as  my  guardian  goes  out,  sing  casually 
to  the  well-known  air  of  these  couplets,  a  few  words  telhng 
me  the  name,  rank,  and  intentions  of  him  who  appears  to 
interest  himself  so  earnestly  in  the  unhappy  Rosine." 

"  My  song  !  I've  lost  my  song  !  "  cries  Figaro,  mi- 
micking Rosine's  voice.  "  Oh  !  these  women  !  If  you 
want  to  teach  cunning  to  the  most  innocent  of  them,  lock 
her  up  !  " 

The  Count  is  delighted  to  find  that  Figaro  knows  quite 
a  lot  about  Bartholo  and  his  ward.  "  The  house  which  I 
occupy,"  he  says,  "  belongs  to  the  doctor  who  lodges  me 
there  gratis."  "  Indeed  !  "  exclaims  the  Count.  "  Yes," 
answers  Figaro,"  and  by  way  of  showing  my  obligation,  I 
promise  him  in  return  ten  gold  pistoles  a  year — also  gratis." 
"  You  are  his  tenant  !  "  cries  the  Count  eagerly.  "  More 
than  that,"  pursues  Figaro,  "  I  am  his  barber,  his  surgeon, 
his  apothecary  ;  there  is  not  a  stroke  of  the  razor,  lancet 
or  syringe  in  his  house  which  does  not  come  from  the  hand 
of  your  excellency's  humble  servant." 

Almaviva  there  and  then  agrees  to  take  Figaro  into  his 
service  again,  and  they  arrange  for  the  lover  to  seek  ad- 
mission to  the  doctor's  house  by  disguising  himself  as  a 
drunken  soldier  bearing  a  billeting  order  from  the  new 
commandant  of  the  town. 

At  this  moment  Bartholo  emerges  from  his  house,  and 
the  confederates  overhear  him  say  to  some  one  within  that 
he  is  going  to  see  Basile,  Rosine's  music  master,  urging  him 
to  hasten  the  arrangements  for  the  guardian's  secret 
marriage  to  his  ward  on  the  morrow. 

Directly  they  are  alone,  Figaro  urges  his  master  to  take 

174 


"The  Barber  of  Seville" 

his  guitar  and  sing  to  Rosine  the  information  about  him- 
self, according  to  her  instructions,  but  to  conceal  his  high 
rank,  and  tell  her  he  is  Lindor,  a  simple  student,  without 
fortune  or  prospects.  On  the  lover's  expressing  diffidence 
as  to  his  ability  to  compose  the  necessary  verses,  Figaro 
encourages  him  by  asserting  :  "In  love,  the  heart  is  not 
hard  to  please  with  the  productions  of  the  mind."  As  the 
song  ends,  Rosine  is  heard  within  singing  a  confession  of 
her  love  for  Lindor. 

"  That  settles  it  !  "  cried  the  Count  in  his  excitement, 
"  I  am  Rosine's  as  long  as  I  breathe  !  " 

"  You  forget,  my  lord,  that  she  no  longer  hears  j^ou  !  " 
Figaro  reminds  him. 

The  next  scene  is  between  Figaro  and  Rosine. 

Figaro.     How  is  your  health,  madam  ? 

Rosine.  Not  very  good.  Master  Figaro  :  dullness  is 
killing  me. 

Figaro.  I  can  well  believe  it  :  only  fools  flourish  upon 
it. 

Rosine.  To  whom  were  you  speaking  with  such  anima- 
tion below  ?     I  did  not  hear  you  :  but  .  .  . 

Figaro,  A  young  bachelor  relative  of  mine,  of  the 
greatest  ability,  full  of  vdt,  talent  and  fine  feeling,  with  a 
most  prepossessing  face. 

Rosine.     Oh,  I  am  sure  of  it  !     You  say  his  name  is  .  .? 

Figaro.  Lindor.  He  is  penniless,  but  if  he  had  not 
left  Madrid  so  hurriedly,  he  might  have  found  a  good  place 
there. 

Rosine.  He  will  find  one.  Master  Figaro,  he  uill  find 
one.  A  young  man  such  as  you  describe  is  not  likely  to 
remain  unknown. 

Figaro.  But  he  has  one  great  fault,  which  will  always 
stand  in  his  way. 

Rosine.  A -fault,  Master  Figaro!  a  fault!  Are  you 
quite  sure  ? 

Figaro.     He  is  in  love. 

Rosine.     He  is  in  love  !     Do  you  call  that  a  fault  ? 

Figaro.  To  tell  the  truth,  it  is  only  one  in  respect  of 
his  lack  of  means. 

Rosine.  Ah  !  How  unjust  is  fate  1  And  has  he  named 
the  lady  he  loves.     I  am  so  curious  to  know. 

175 


Figaro  :   The  Life  of  Beaumarchais 

Figaro.  You  are  the  last  person^  madam,  to  whom  I 
would  reveal  a  secret  of  this  nature. 

Rosine  (eagerly).  Why,  Master  Figaro  ?  I  assure 
you  I  am  discreet.  The  young  man  is  your  relative,  he 
interests  me  immensely  ...  Do  tell  me  ! 

Figaro  (looking  at  her  slyly).  Picture  to  yourself  the 
prettiest  little  darling,  sweet,  tender,  fresh  and  gracious, 
appetizing,  with  a  shy  little  foot,  slim,  dainty  figure, 
rounded  arms,  rosy  mouth  and  hands  !  cheeks  !  teeth  ! 
eyes !  .  .  . 

Rosine.     Who  lives  in  this  city  ? 

Figaro.     In  this  very  quarter. 

Rosine.     In  this  street  perhaps  ? 

Figaro.     Tvvo  feet  away  from  me. 

Rosine.  Ah  !  How  charming  ...  for  your  relative. 
And  this  young  lady  is  ? 

Figaro.     Have  I  not  named  her  ? 

Rosine.  That  is  the  one  thing  you  have  forgotten. 
Master  Figaro.  Tell  me  !  Do  tell  me  now  :  if  somebody 
comes  in  I  might  never  know  ! 

Figaro.  Do  you  really  want  to  know,  madam  ?  Very 
well,  this  young  person  is  .  .  .  your  guardian's  ward. 

Rosine.     Ward  ? 

Figaro.     Doctor  Bartholo's  ward  ;  yes,  madam. 

Rosine.  Ah  !  Master  Figaro,  I'm  sure  I  don't  beheve 
you  ! 

Figaro.  Of  that  he  is  burning  to  come  himself  and 
convince  you. 

Rosine.     You  make  me  tremble,  Master  Figaro. 

Figaro.  Come  !  come !  madam.  Tremble,  indeed ! 
That  will  not  do  at  all,  when  once  you  give  way  to  the  fear 
of  evil,  you  already  experience  the  evil  of  fear. 

Rosine.  If  he  loves  me,  he  must  prove  it  by  keeping 
absolutely  quiet. 

Figaro.  What,  madam  !  can  love  and  tranquillity 
live  together  in  the  same  heart  ?  Young  people  are  so 
unfortunately  situated  nowadays,  they  have  only  this 
terrible  alternative,  love  without  peace,  or  peace  without 
love. 

Rosine  (lowering  her  eyes).  Peace  without  love  .  .  . 
seems  .  .  . 

Figaro.  Oh  !  very  slow.  It  seems,  indeed,  that  love 
176 


**The  Barber  of  Seville'' 

without  peace  cuts  a  better  figure  altogether,  and,  as  for 
me,  if  I  were  a  woman  .  .  . 

Rosine  (blushing).  It  is  certain  that  a  young  lady 
cannot  prevent  a  worthy  man  from  esteeming  her  .  .  . 

Figaro.  My  relative,  accordingly,  esteems  you  enor- 
mously. 

Rosine.  But  if  he  should  commit  some  imprudence. 
Master  Figaro,  he  would  ruin  us  ! 

Figaro  (aside).  He  would  ruin  us.  (Aloud.)  If  you 
would  expressly  forbid  him  in  a  little  note  ...  A  letter 
has  such  power  ! 

Rosine  (giving  him  the  letter  she  has  just  wi'itten).  I 
have  no  time  to  re-write  this  ;  but  when  you  give  it  to  him, 
tell  him  ...  be  sure  and  tell  him  that  it  is  purely  out  of 
friendship  that  I  do  it  .  .  .  you  understand  ?  .  .  .  My 
only  fear  is  that  discouraged  by  difftculties  .  .  . 


Her  guardian  is  now  heard  downstairs,  and  Rosine 
takes  up  her  needlework,  whilst  Figaro  discreetly  with- 
draws. 

Bartholo  enters  the  room  cursing  Figaro  at  the  top  of 
his  voice  for  playing  a  series  of  practical  jokes  on  his  ser- 
vants, by  which  one  is  set  constantly  gaping  and  the  other 
perpetually  sneezing.  Having  exhausted  his  vocabulary, 
he  turns  on  Rosine  and  quarrels  with  her  on  account  of  the 
letter  she  let  drop  over  the  balcony,  expressing  the  sus- 
picion that  Figaro  has  just  been  with  her  intriguing  to  get 
her  carried  off. 

Rosine.  What  !  will  you  not  even  allow  that 
one  has  principles  to  set  against  the  seductions  of  Master 
Figaro  ? 

Bartholo.  Who  the  devil  knows  anything  about  the 
caprices  of  women  ?  Besides,  how  many  of  these  high- 
principled  virtues  have  I  seen  .  .  . 

Rosine.  But,  sir,  if  it  suffices  to  be  a  man  in  order  to 
please  us,  why  is  it  you  displease  me  so  much  ? 

In  her  rage,  she  admits  that  Figaro  has  been  with  her. 
"  I  found  him  very  agreeable,"  she  says,  "  and  may  you 
die  of  vexation  !  " 

Bartholo  now  shouts  for  his  servants  La  Jeunesse  and 
L'Eveille,  who  hasten  to  obey  his  summons,  the  first  still 

177  12 


Figaro  :   The  Life  of  Beaumarchais 

sneezing,  and  the  second  still  yawning.  Their  master 
accuses  them  of  collusion  with  Figaro. 

La  Jeunesse.  But,  sir,  is  there  (aa-choo !)  .  .  any 
justice  ! 

Bartholo.  Justice  !  justice  for  such  wretches  as  you  ! 
I  am  your  master  :   therefore  I  am  always  right. 

La  Jeunesse.  Yes,  but  hang  it !  .  .  .  (aa-choo/)  .  .  . 
when  a  thing  is  true.  .  .  . 

Bartholo.  When  a  thing  is  true  !  If  I  don't  want 
a  thing  to  be  true  I  claim  that  it  isn't  true.  Let  these 
rascals  be  right,  and  you'll  soon  see  what  will  become 
of  authority  ! 

Basile,  Rosine's  music  master  and  the  doctor's  accom- 
plice in  his  designs  on  his  ward,  now  calls  to  warn  him 
that  Almaviva  has  come  to  live  in  Seville,  and  advises 
him  that  the  most  effective  means  of  driving  him  off  is 
to  slander  him.  (Figaro,  hidden  in  a  cabinet,  overhears 
this  conversation.) 

"  That  is  a  strange  way  of  getting  rid  of  a  man  !  " 
comments  Bartholo. 

"  Slander,  my  dear  sir,"  answers  Basile,  in  an  oft-quoted 
passage,  "  is  not  to  be  so  despised.  I  have  seen  the  most 
honourable  men  almost  ruined  by  it.  Believe  me,  there 
is  no  stupid  malignity,  no  abomination,  no  silly  tale  which 
will  not  be  credited  by  the  indolent  people  of  a  great  city, 
if  you  set  about  it  in  the  right  way  :  and  we  have  here 
some  of  the  cleverest  fellows  at  the  game  !  First  a  light 
rumour  skimming  over  the  ground  hke  a  swallow  before 
the  storm,  pianissimo  murmur  and  twist,  and  it  is  gone, 
leaving  a  poisonous  trail  behind.  So-and-so  welcomes  it, 
and  piano,  piano  adroitly  slips  it  into  your  ear.  The  evil 
is  done  !  It  sprouts,  crawls,  makes  its  way  everywhere, 
and  rinforzando,  from  mouth  to  mouth,  it  spreads  like  the 
very  devil ;  then,  suddenly  and  unaccountably,  you  see 
slander  raising  its  head,  hissing,  swelling,  and  growing 
before  your  eyes.  It  darts  forward,  extends  its  sway, 
whirls,  envelopes,  tears,  bursts,  thunders,  and  carrying 
all  before  it,  becomes,  thank  heaven,  a  general  cry,  a 
public  crescendo,  a  universal  chorus  of  hatred  and 
destruction.     Who  the  deuce  can  withstand  it  ?  " 

Although  not  quite  convinced  by  this  outburst, 
Bartholo,  nevertheless,  determines  to  hasten  the  arrange- 

178 


**  The  Barber  of  Seville  '* 

ments  for  his  marriage,  and  reproaches  Basile  for  not 
having  carried  out  his  instructions  more  expeditiously. 

"  Yes,"  says  Basile,  "  but  you  shouldn't  have  haggled 
over  the  expenses.  In  the  harmony  of  good  order,  a  secret 
marriage,  an  iniquitous  judgment,  an  obvious  miscarriage 
of  justice,  are  difficulties  which  you  must  always  be  on 
the  look-out  for  and  prevent  by  the  perfect  accord  of 
gold."  Bartholo  gives  more  money,  and  Basile  promises 
to  fix  up  the  ceremony  for  the  follomng  day.  The  prudent 
doctor  follows  his  visitor  downstairs  and  carefully  closes 
the  door  after  him. 

The  reader  will  not  have  failed  to  observe  that  the 
incongruity  of  Basile's  conversation  in  this  scene  is  due 
to  its  being  one  of  the  interpolated  passages,  previously 
referred  to,  in  which  Beaumarchais  the  dramatist  could 
not  resist  the  temptation  (even  at  the  expense  of  hanging 
up  the  action  of  the  play)  of  avenging  Beaumarchais  the 
disappointed  and  resentful  litigant. 

"  Oh  !  what  a  famous  precaution  !  "  exclaims  Figaro, 
issuing  from  his  retreat.  "  Shut  the  door,  and  I  will 
open  it  again  to  let  the  Count  in  as  I  go  out.  But  what 
a  rogue  that  Basile  is  !  Luckily  he  is  a  bigger  fool  still. 
To  make  a  sensation  in  the  world  as  a  slanderer  you  want 
to  be  a  man  of  position,  family,  name,  rank — substance,  in 
short.*  But  a  Basile  ! — he  can  slander  as  much  as  he 
likes  and  nobody  will  believe  him  !  " 

In  the  following  scene  between  Bartholo  and  Rosine, 
the  doctor  guesses  that  she  has  been  writing  another 
letter.  His  shrewdness  completely  corners  her,  and 
reduces  her  to  a  state  bordering  on  nervous  collapse. 
Almaviva  now  joins  them,  disguised  as  a  soldier,  mellow 
with  wine,  bearing  an  order  on  the  doctor  to  billet  him 
for  the  night.  In  the  following  conversation  he  contrives 
to  pass  a  letter  to  Rosine,  but  the  guardian's  sharp  eyes 
detect  the  movement,  whereupon  the  Count  pretends 
merely  to  be  restoring  to  her  a  letter  she  has  dropped, 
and  Rosine  slips  the  missive  into  the  pocket  of  her  apron. 
Bartholo  shows  that  he  is  exempted  from  the  obligation 
of  billeting,  and  orders  Almaviva  away. 

*  A  shaft  which  could  hardly  fail  to  reach  the  address  of  the  Comte  de  la 
Blache. 

179  12* 


Figaro  :   The  Life  of  Beaumarchais 

"  Very  well,  doctor,"  answers  the  Count,  "  I  will  go. 
Good-bye,  doctor  !  But  just  to  show  that  you  bear  no 
ill  will,  pray  that  Death  may  overlook  me  for  a  few  more 
campaigns  :   life  has  never  been  so  dear  to  me  !  " 

"Be  off  with  you,  now  !  If  I  had  so  much  credit 
with  Death.  .  .  ." 

"  Are  you  not  a  doctor  ?  You  do  so  much  for  Death, 
that  it  can  surely  refuse  you  nothing  !  " 

Alone  with  Rosine,  Bartholo  at  once  accuses  her  of 
having  received  a  letter  from  the  drunken  soldier,  and 
demands  to  be  allowed  to  see  it.  Rosine  asserts  that  it 
was  only  a  note  from  her  cousin  which  had  dropped  from 
her  pocket  ;  but  her  guardian  is  certain  that  she  is  not 
telling  the  truth,  and  goes  to  lock  the  door,  preparatory 
to  taking  the  letter  from  her  by  force.  Meanwhile  Rosine 
substitutes  her  cousin's  letter  for  the  Count's.  After 
securing  the  door,  Bartholo  seizes  her  by  the  wrists  and 
throws  her  upon  a  chair.  She  complains  that  his  brutality 
has  made  her  feel  faint,  and  the  doctor,  whilst  giving  her 
medical  aid,  takes  the  letter  from  her  pocket  to  read, 
but  finds  that  it  is,  as  she  said,  her  cousin's  note.  Seeing, 
as  he  thinks,  that  he  is  clearly  in  the  wrong,  he  endeavours 
to  make  amends,  and  they  soon  become  friends  again. 

"  If  only  you  could  love  me  !  "  sighs  Bartholo,  "  how 
happy  you  would  be  !  " 

"  If  only  you  could  please  me,"  replies  Rosine,  "  how 
I  would  love  you  !  ' ' 

On  reading  Lindor's  letter,  she  finds  that  he  asks  her 
to  pick  a  quarrel  with  her  guardian,  and  she  is  in  despair 
at  having  let  such  an  excellent  opportunity  escape  her. 
However,  she  reflects,  an  unjust  man  will  make  a  schemer 
of  innocence  itself,  and  a  reasonable  excuse  for  falling  out 
with  Bartholo  is  never  far  to  seek.  When,  therefore, 
Almaviva  makes  his  appearance,  stating  that  he  is  Alonzo 
and  comes  to  deputize  for  Basile,  who  is  ill,  the  relations 
between  the  pair  are  as  strained  as  ever.  The  doctor, 
however,  suspects  some  trickery,  and  at  last,  to  avoid  being 
ignominiously  dismissed,  the  Count  is  reduced  to  handing 
him  Rosine's  letter,  which,  he  says,  Basile  has  begged  him 
to  do  on  his  behalf,  and  to  assure  him  that  arrangements 
have  been  made  with  a  lawyer  for  the  wedding  to  take 

i8o 


"The  Barber  of  Seville" 

place  the  next  day.  If  Rosine  resists,  they  will  show  her 
the  letter,  and  Lindor  will  tell  her  that  he  got  it  through 
another  woman,  for  whose  sake  Almaviva  had  abandoned 
her. 

"  Slander,  my  dear  fellow  !  "  laughs  Bartholo.  "  I 
quite  see  now  that  you  have  come  straight  from  Basile." 

All  suspicion  allayed,  the  doctor  now  goes  to  seek 
Rosine  for  her  lesson.  Upon  entering  the  room  she  is  so 
taken  aback  by  seeing  the  Count  that  she  utters  a  cry, 
and  instantly  recovers  herself  by  pretending  she  has 
twisted  her  ankle  in  turning.  The  lovers,  still  in  the 
presence  of  the  vigilant  Bartholo,  whom  it  is  impossible 
to  shake  off,  sing  together  the  song  from  The  Useless 
Precaution.  Figaro  now  enters  for  the  purpose  of  shaving 
the  doctor.  But  the  latter  angrily  turns  upon  him  for 
his  excess  of  zeal  in  drugging  his  servants.  "  What  have 
you  to  say  to  the  poor  wretch  who  gapes  and  sleeps  ever 
since  you  tended  him,  or  to  the  other  who  for  the  last 
three  hours  has  sneezed  enough  to  blow  his  brains  out  ?  " 

"  What  have  I  to  say  to  them  ?  " 

"  Yes." 

Figaro.  Well,  I  should  say.  .  .  .  Why,  yes,  I  should 
say  to  him  who  sneezes  :  "God  bless  you  !  "  and  to  him 
who  yawns  :   "  Go  to  bed  !  " 

Bartholo.  You  would  do  better,  master  quibbler, 
to  pay  me  my  hundred  crowns  with  interest,  without 
any  more  nonsense,  so  I  warn  you  ! 

Figaro.  Do  you  doubt  my  honesty,  sir  ?  Your 
hundred  crowns  !  Why,  I  would  rather  owe  them  to  you 
all  my  life  than  deny  the  debt  for  a  single  moment.  .  .  . 

When  at  last  the  quarrel  is  over,  Bartholo  sends  Figaro 
for  the  shaving  things,  in  order  not  to  leave  the  Count 
and  Rosine  together.  During  his  absence  Bartholo 
whispers  to  the  Count  that  he  is  the  rascal  who  brought 
the  letter.  At  this  moment  there  is  a  crash  of  crockery, 
which  draws  the  doctor  from  the  room,  and  Almaviva 
takes  the  opportunity  to  beg  Rosine  to  grant  him  a  secret 
interview  that  night  and  to  fly  with  him.  He  is  about  to 
explain  how  he  had  been  compelled  to  give  Bartholo  her 
letter,  when  the  latter  returns  with  Figaro.  Under  cover 
of  the  confusion  caused  by  the  crash,  Figaro  has  possessed 
himself  of  the  key  of  the  window  shutters. 

iSi 


Figaro  :   The  Life  of  Beaumarchais 

To  the  consternation  of  the  lovers,  Basile  now  enters 
the  room. 

Bartholo.  Ah  !  Basile,  my  good  fellow  ;  I  see  you 
have  quickly  recovered.  Your  accident  has  had  no  ill 
consequences  ?  Master  Alonzo  quite  frightened  me  about 
you  :  ask  him  :  I  was  on  the  point  of  coming  to  see  you, 
and  if  he  had  not  dissuaded  me.  .  . 

Basile.     Master  Alonzo  ! 

Figaro  here  seeks  to  create  a  diversion,  but  the  new- 
comer is  too  astonished  to  be  put  off. 

Basile.  Will  you  give  me  the  pleasure,  gentle- 
men ?  .  .  . 

Figaro.     You  can  speak  to  him  when  I  am  gone. 

Basile.     Yes,  but  .  .  . 

Count.  You  should  keep  quiet,  Basile.  Do  you  think 
you  can  tell  him  anything  he  doesn't  know  ?  I  have 
already  told  him  that  you  sent  me  to  give  a  music  lesson 
in  your  place. 

Basile  (still  more  astonished).  A  music  lesson ! 
Alonzo  ! 

Rosine  (whispering  to  Basile).     Oh  !    hold  your  tongue. 

Basile.     She  too  ! 

Count  (aside  to  Bartholo).  Tell  him  quickly  that  we 
have  come  to  an  agreement. 

Bartholo  (aside  to  Basile).  Don't  give  us  away,  Basile, 
by  saying  that  he  is  not  your  pupil — you  will  spoil  every- 
thing. 

Basile.     Ha  !  ha  ! 

Bartholo.  Really,  Basile,  you  have  a  most  talented 
pupil. 

Basile  (in  great  astonishment).  My  pupil  !  (Aside 
to  Bartholo.)  I  came  to  tell  you  that  the  Count  has 
moved. 

Bartholo  (whispers).     I  know.     Hold  your  tongue  ! 

Basile.     Who  told  you  ? 

Bartholo.     He,  of  course. 

Count.     I,  certainly  :   if  you  would  only  listen  ! 

Rosine  (whispering  to  Basile).  Is  it  so  difficult  to 
hold  your  tongue  ? 

Figaro.     Hum  !    you  great  hippogrif  !     He's  deaf ! 

Basile.  Then  who  the  devil  is  it  they  are  deceiving 
here  ?     Everybody  seems  to  be  in  the  secret  ! 

182 


**  The  Barber  of  Seville  " 

Bartholo.     Well,  Basile,  what  about  your  lawyer  ? 

Figaro.  You  will  have  the  whole  evening  to  talk 
about  the  lawyer. 

Bartholo.  Only  one  word  :  are  you  satisfied  with  the 
lawyer  ? 

Basile  (frightened).     The  lawyer  ? 

Count  (smiling).     What,  haven't  you  seen  the  lawyer  ? 

Basile  (angrily).  No  ! — I  tell  you  I  haven't  seen  the 
lawyer. 

Count  (to  Bartholo).  Do  you  want  him  to  explain 
everything  before  her  ?     Send  him  away. 

Bartholo  (whispering  to  the  Count).  You  are  right 
(To  Basile).     But  what  made  you  ill  so  suddenly  ? 

Basile  (in  a  rage).     I  don't  understand  you. 

Count  (taking  him  aside  and  putting  a  purse  in  his 
hand).  Yes,  the  doctor  asks  what  you  are  doing  here,  ill 
as  you  are. 

Figaro.     His  face  is  as  pale  as  death. 

Basile.     Ha  !  I  understand.  .  .  . 

Count.  Go  home  to  bed,  my  dear  Basile  ;  you  are 
not  well,  and  you  frighten  us  horribly.     Go  home  to  bed. 

Figaro.     He  looks  terribly  bad.     Go  home  to  bed  ! 

Bartholo.  Upon  my  word,  he  is  as  feverish  as  he  can 
be  ! 

Rosine.  Why  did  you  come  out  ?  They  say  it's 
catching.     Go  home  to  bed  ! 

Basile  (in  the  utmost  astonishment).     Go  home  to  bed  ? 

All  together.     Yes,  certainly. 

Basile  (staring  at  them).  Indeed,  I  think  it  would  be 
as  well  to  go  :   I  do  feel  rather  out  of  sorts. 

Bartholo.     See  you  to-morrow  :   if  you  are  better. 

Count.  Basile,  I  shall  call  upon  you  early  in  the 
morning. 

Figaro.  Take  my  advice,  and  wrap  yourself  up  warmly 
in  bed. 

Rosine.     Good  night  !    Master  Basile. 

Basile  (aside).  Damned  if  I  know  what  to  make  of 
it  ! — and  if  it  wasn't  for  this  purse.   .   .   . 

All.     Good  night,  Basile  !     Good  night  ! 

Basile  (savagely).     Oh,  well  !     Good  night  ! 

They  all  accompany  him  to  the  door,  laughing. 

After  this  dismissal,  Figaro  proceeds  with  his  shaving 
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Figaro  :    The  Life  of  Beaumarchais 

of  the  doctor,  and  tries  to  manoeuvre  a  little  private  con- 
versation between  the  lovers,  but  the  ever-watchful 
Bartholo  surprises  them  and  overhears  enough  of  their 
talk  to  discover  that  he  has  been  outwitted.  Rosine, 
before  retiring  to  her  apartment,  turns  angrily  upon  the 
doctor  and  openly  defies  him,  whilst  Almaviva  and  Figaro 
pretend  that  he  is  mad,  and  hastily  leave  the  house. 

The  last  act  opens  with  a  conversation  between  Bartholo 
and  Basile  on  the  eventful  night  arranged  for  the  marriage. 
It  is  raining  in  torrents. 

Bartholo.  What,  Basile — you  do  not  know  him  ? 
Is  what  you  say  possible  ? 

Basile.  Ask  me  a  hundred  times,  and  I  should  always 
give  you  the  same  answer.  If  he  gave  you  Rosine's  letter, 
he  is  certainly  one  of  the  Count's  emissaries.  But,  judging 
by  the  magnificence  of  the  present  he  gave  me,  he  may 
very  well  be  the  Count  himself. 

Bartholo.  That  is  not  hkely  !  But,  talking  about 
this  present  ;  why  did  you  take  it  ? 

Basile.  You  seemed  to  have  come  to  an  agreement  ; 
I  could  not  understand  what  was  afoot  :  and  whenever 
I  am  confronted  with  a  difficult  question,  a  purse  of  gold 
always  seems  to  me  an  unanswerable  argument.  Then, 
as  the  proverb  says  :  What  is  good  to  take  .  .  . 

Bartholo.     I  understand  ...  is  good  .  .  . 

Basile.     To  keep. 

Bartholo.     Ha  !    ha  ! 

Basile.  Yes,  I  have  arranged  several  little  proverbs 
Hke  that  with  variations.  But  to  come  to  the  point,  what 
have  you  decided  ? 

Bartholo.  If  you  were  in  my  place,  Basile,  would  you 
not  do  your  utmost  to  possess  her  ? 

Basile.  My  goodness  !  no,  doctor  !  In  every  kind 
of  property  possession  is  little,  it  is  enjoyment  of  it  which 
gives  happiness  :  I  think  that  to  marry  a  woman  who  does 
not  love  you  is  to  expose  yourself.   .   .   . 

Bartholo.     You  would  be  afraid  of  accidents  ? 

Basile.  Hee-hee  !  sir.  .  .  .  There  are  many  of  them 
this  year.     I  would  not  do  violence  to  her  heart. 

Bartholo.  Your  servant,  Basile.  It  is  better  that  she 
should  weep  at  having  me  than  that  I  should  die  for  not 
having  her. 

184 


**  The  Barber  of  Seville  " 

Basile.  Oh  !  is  it  a  matter  of  life  and  death  ?  Then, 
marry,  doctor,  marry. 

Bartholo.     That's  what  I  intend  to  do  this  very  night. 

Basile.  Farewell,  then.  .  .  .  Don't  forget,  in  speaking 
to  your  ward,  to  make  them  out  as  black  as  hell. 

Bartholo.     You  are  quite  right. 

Basile.  Slander,  doctor,  slander  !  You  must  always 
come  back  to  that. 

Bartholo.  Here's  Rosine's  letter  which  that  fellow 
Alonzo  gave  me,  and  unwilhngly  showed  me  what  use 
to  make  of  it  with  her. 

Basile.     Farewell  :  we  shall  all  be  here  at  four  o'clock. 

Bartholo.     Why  not  sooner  ? 

Basile.     Impossible  ;  the  notary  is  engaged. 

Bartholo.     For  a  marriage  ? 

Basile.  Yes,  at  the  barber  Figaro's  ;  his  niece  is  to  be 
married. 

Bartholo.     His  niece  ? — but  he  hasn't  one. 

Basile.     Anyhow,  that's  what  they  told  the  notary. 

Bartholo.  That  scoundrel  is  in  the  plot  ;  what  the 
devil !  .  .  . 

Basile.     Do  you  really  think  ?  .  .  . 

Bartholo.  My  goodness  !  those  beggars  are  so  wide 
awake  !  Look  you  here,  my  friend,  I  am  not  at  all  easy. 
Return  to  the  notary  and  ask  him  to  come  back  with  you 
at  once. 

Basile.  It  is  raining  infernally  ;  but  nothing  shall 
stop  me  from  serving  you.     What  are  you  going  to  do  ? 

Bartholo.  I'll  see  you  out.  That  rascal  Figaro  has 
put  all  my  servants  out  of  action  :  I'm  alone  here. 

Basile.     I  have  my  lantern. 

Bartholo.  Now,  Basile,  here  is  my  master  key  ;  I'll 
wait  for  you  and  keep  watch.  Come  who  may,  except  you 
and  the  notary,  nobody  shall  come  in  to-night. 

Basile.     With  such  precautions  all  is  sure. 

Bartholo,  without  losing  a  moment,  seeks  out  Rosine, 
shows  her  the  letter  she  wrote  to  Almaviva  and  tells  her 
of  the  plot  he  has  discovered  to  secure  her  person,  and  that 
he  owed  the  betrayal  of  the  secret  to  the  jealousy  of  a 
successful  rival.  Overwhelm.ed  by  the  alleged  perfidy 
of   the   Count,   Rosine   consents  to   marry   her   guardian 

185 


Figaro  :   The  Life  of  Beaumarchais 

that  very  night.  Directly  the  doctor  leaves  her,  she 
bursts  into  tears  and  bewails  her  fate. 

At  this  moment,  all  being  quiet,  Figaro  and  the  Count 
enter  by  the  window. 

Figaro.  We  are  wet  through  !  Charming  weather 
for  love-making,  my  lord.  What  do  you  think  of  the 
night  ? 

Count.     Superb  for  a  lover  ! 

Figaro.  Yes,  but  for  a  confidant  ?  .  .  .  And  if  some- 
body surprise  us  here  ? 

Count.  Aren't  you  with  me.  It  is  quite  another 
matter  that  worries  me  :  that  is  to  persuade  her  to  leave 
her  guardian's  house  immediately. 

Figaro.  You  have  on  your  side  three  passions  all- 
powerful  with  the  fair  sex  :  love,  hatred,  and  fear. 

Count  (gazing  into  the  darkness).  How  can  I  announce 
to  her  abruptly  that  the  notary  is  waiting  at  your  house 
to  unite  us  ?  She  will  think  my  plan  foolhardy  :  she  will 
call  me  presumptuous. 

Figaro.  If  she  calls  you  presumptuous,  you  should 
call  her  cruel.  Women  love  to  be  called  cruel.  If  her  love 
is  such  as  you  desire,  you  can  tell  her  who  you  are  :  she 
will  no  longer  have  any  doubt  of  your  sentiments. 

On  the  entrance  of  Rosine  there  is  a  scene  of  bitter 
tears  and  reproaches  on  her  part  in  which  she  renounces 
the  Count,  whom  she  has  learnt  to  love  as  Lindor,  for  his 
supposed  betrayal  of  her  to  Almaviva.  The  Count,  how- 
ever, soon  explains  the  misunderstanding  and  convinces 
her  of  the  sincerity  of  his  passion,  revealing  to  her  for  the 
first  time  his  true  name  and  position.  On  the  reconcilia- 
tion of  the  lovers,  the  Count  promises  to  punish  the  odious 
old  fellow  who  has  been  the  cause  of  all  the  mischief  ;  but 
the  tender-hearted  Rosine  pleads  for  him  :  "  No,  no, 
pardon  him,  dear  Lindor,"  she  says.  "  My  heart  is  so  full 
that  vengeance  can  find  no  place  in  it." 

The  notary,  armed  with  two  marriage  contracts,  now 
enters  with  Basile.  The  lawyer,  seeing  that  the  lady's 
name  in  each  document  is  the  same,  intelligently  supposes 
that  the  brides  are  two  sisters  who  bear  the  same  name. 
As  for  Basile,  he  does  not  know  what  to  make  of  it,  but  his 

i86 


**The  Barber  of  Seville" 

scruples  are  quickly  overcome  by  the  Count,  who  hands  him 
a  purse  and  engages  him  as  a  witness.  "  There  is  no  further 
difficulty,"  says  Basile,  weighing  the  purse  in  his  hand  ; 
"  but  that  is  because  when  I  have  once  given  my  word, 
there  must  be  reasons  of  great  weight.  ..."  And  he 
signs. 

Bartholo,  with  a  justice  of  the  peace,  police  officers  and 
servants,  at  this  moment  rush  into  the  room.  He  sees 
the  Count  kissing  Rosine's  hand,  and  Figaro  grotesquely 
embracing  Basile.  With  a  savage  cry,  he  seizes  the  notary 
by  the  throat. 

Bartholo.  Rosine  with  these  rascals  !  Arrest  them 
all.     I've  got  one  of  them  by  the  collar. 

Notary.     I  am  your  notary. 

Basile.     He  is  your  notary.     What  are  you  playing  at  ? 

Bartholo.     Ha  !   Don  Basile  !     How  is  it  you  are  here  ? 

Basile.     Say,  rather,  how  is  it  you  were  not  here  ? 

Justice  (pointing  at  Figaro).  One  moment  ;  I  know 
him.  What  are  you  doing  in  this  house  at  this  time  of 
night  ? 

Figaro.  This  time  of  night  !  You  must  see  that  it 
is  as  near  morning  as  night.  Besides,  I  belong  to  the 
retinue  of  his  Excellency,  my  Lord  Count  Almaviva. 

Bartholo.     Almaviva  ! 

Justice.     They  are  not  thieves,  then  ? 

Bartholo.  Never  mind  that. — Everywhere  else,  my 
lord  Count,  I  am  your  excellency's  humble  servant  ;  but 
you  must  understand  that  here  your  superiority  of  rank 
is  without  effect.  Have  the  goodness,  if  you  please,  to 
retire. 

Count.  Yes,  rank  is  powerless  here  ;  but  what  is  very 
pertinent  to  the  situation  is  the  preference  to  yourself 
which  the  young  lady  has  accorded  me  by  voluntarily 
giving  herself  to  me. 

Bartholo.     What  is  that  he  says,  Rosine  ? 

Rosine.  It  is  true.  Why  should  you  be  astonished  ? 
Was  I  not  this  night  to  be  avenged  on  a  deceiver  ?     I  am. 

Basile.  Didn't  I  tell  you  it  was  the  Count  himself, 
doctor  ? 

Bartholo.  What  does  that  matter  to  me  ?  A  pretty 
marriage  !— Where  are  the  witnesses  ? 

187 


Figaro  :   The  Life  of  Beaumarchais 

Notary.  There  is  nothing  wanting.  I  was  assisted 
by  these  two  gentlemen. 

Bartholo.     What,  Basile  !  .  .  .  You  signed  ? 

Basile.  Why  not  ?  This  devil  of  a  fellow  always  has 
his  pockets  full  of  irresistible  arguments. 

Bartholo.  I  snap  my  fingers  at  his  arguments.  I 
shall  make  use  of  my  authority. 

Count.     You  have  lost  it  by  abusing  it. 

Bartholo.     The  young  lady  is  a  minor. 

Figaro.     She  has  just  come  of  age. 

Bartholo.     Who  is  speaking  to  you,  you  rogue  ? 

Count.  The  young  lady  is  noble  and  beautiful ;  I 
am  a  man  of  rank,  young  and  rich  ;  she  is  my  uife  ;  by 
this  title,  which  honours  us  both,  do  you  claim  to  dispute 
her  with  me  ? 

Bartholo.     You  shall  never  take  her  out  of  my  hands. 

Count.  She  is  no  longer  in  your  power.  I  put  her 
under  the  protection  of  the  law  ;  and  this  gentleman  whom 
you  have  brought  yourself,  will  protect  her  from  any 
violence  you  propose  to  offer  her.  True  magistrates  are 
the  protectors  of  all  the  oppressed. 

Justice.  Certainly.  And  this  useless  resistance  to  a 
most  honourable  marriage  shows  how  frightened  he  is 
over  his  maladministration  of  his  ward's  property,  of 
which  he  will  have  to  render  a  strict  account. 

Count.  Ah  !  let  him  but  agree  to  everything,  and  I 
shall  ask  nothing  more  of  him. 

Figaro.  Except  the  receipt  for  my  hundred  crowns  : 
don't  let  us  lose  our  heads  ! 

Bartholo  (angrily).  They  were  all  against  me.  .  .  . 
Fve  thrust  my  head  into  a  booby-trap  ! 

Basile.  Booby-trap  be  hanged  !  Remember,  doctor, 
that  although  you  cannot  have  the  girl,  you  keep  the 
money,  and  .  .  . 

Bartholo.  Oh  !  leave  me  alone,  Basile  !  You  think 
only  of  money.  What  do  I  care  for  money  !  Of  course, 
ril  keep  it,  but  do  you  think  that  is  the  reason  which 
decides  me  ?     (He  signs.) 

Figaro.  Ha  !  ha  !  ha  !  my  lord,  they  belong  to  the 
same  family. 

Notary.  But,  gentlemen,  I  don't  understand  at  all. 
Are  there  not  two  young  ladies  who  bear  the  same  name  ? 

i88 


**  The  Barber  of  Seville  *' 

Figaro.     No,  sir,  there  is  only  one. 

Bartholo  (in  despair).  And  it  was  I  who  took  away  the 
ladder,  only  to  make  the  marriage  more  certain  !  Ah  ! 
I  have  defeated  my  own  purpose  through  lack  of  care. 

Figaro.  Rather  through  lack  of  sense.  .  .  .  But  to 
tell  the  truth,  doctor,  when  love  and  youth  have  agreed 
to  deceive  an  old  man,  everything  he  does  to  prevent  it 
may  well  be  called  The  Useless  Precaution. 

At  the  time  of  the  production  of  The  Barber  of  Seville, 
it  was  unkindly  said  that  Beaumarchais  had  borrowed 
largely  from  Sedaine's  On  ne  s'avise  jamais  de  tout.  One 
of  those  dullards  who  delight  to  repeat  unpleasant  things, 
chose  the  moment  when  the  new  dramatist  was  surrounded 
by  people  in  the  green-room,  to  tell  him  in  a  loud  voice 
that  his  play  was  very  like  You  can  never  think  of  Every- 
thing. "  Very  hke,  sir  ?  "  he  replied.  "  I  claim  that 
my  piece  is  You  can  never  think  of  Everything.'* 

"  How  do  you  make  that  out  ?  " 

"  Because  nobody  had  ever  thought  of  my  piece." 

The  critic  was  abashed,  and  everybody  laughed  all  the 
more  because,  says  Beaumarchais,  "  he  who  reproached 
me  with  You  can  never  think  of  Everything,  was  a  person 
who  never  thought  of  anything  !  " 

Most  people  are  of  Cleon's  opinion  in  Le  Mechant, 
that  "  fools  are  here  below  for  our  amusement,"  and  for 
his  part  Beaumarchais  thought  they  were  fair  game.  But 
lack  of  understanding,  is,  after  all,  a  misfortune,  and 
however  irritating  it  may  be  to  have  to  deal  with  a  naturally 
dense  person,  it  is  just  as  cruel  and  irrational  to  jeer  at  his 
dullness  as  to  laugh  at  the  deformity  of  a  cripple.  Yet, 
such  is  human  nature,  that  however  fully  we  realize  this 
fact,  we  shall  probably  be  as  impatient  as  ever  with  the 
very  next  fool  we  encounter. 


189 


CHAPTER  XX 

BEAUMARCHAIS   AND   THE    CHEVALIER   D'EON 

BEAUMARCHAIS  was  now  rapidly  gaining  ground. 
The  applause  attending  the  production  of  The 
Barter  of  Seville  was  still  at  its  height  when  he  resumed 
his  journeying  to  and  fro  between  Paris  and  London,  in 
connection  with  the  suppression  of  libellous  publications, 
for  which  there  was  such  a  steady  and  encouraging 
demand.  Whilst  in  England,  he  maintained  a  regular 
correspondence  with  M.  de  Sartine  and  kept  him  informed 
of  all  that  was  going  on  in  the  political  and  social  life 
of  this  country,  especially  with  reference  to  the  revolt 
of  the  Colonies.  For  this  purpose  he  attended  every 
important  debate  in  the  House  of  Commons  and  sought  the 
society  of  the  Opposition  leaders,  where  he  was  soon  a 
welcome  guest.  It  was  at  this  time  that  he  became  the 
intimate  of  Wilkes  and  his  friends.  Louis  took  an  ever 
increasing  interest  in  his  shrewd  and  discriminating  reports, 
and  the  Government  now  decided  to  pit  him  against  a  man 
of  a  notoriety  as  great  as  his  own,  quite  as  clever  and  almost 
as  witty  as  himself,  whose  life,  like  his  own,  will  ever  be  one 
of  the  most  amazing  stories  outside  the  pages  of  fiction. 

The  Chevalier  d'Eon  de  Beaumont  was  born  at  Ton- 
nerre,  on  the  5th  October,  1728.  As  a  very  young  man  he 
distinguished  himself  in  the  secret  diplomatic  service  under 
the  Comte  de  Broglie,  which  Louis  XV.  conducted  unknown 
to  his  ministers.  He  accompanied  Sir  JMackenzie  Douglas 
on  his  perilous  mission  to  the  Court  of  Russia  with  the 
object  of  securing  the  election  of  the  Prince  de  Conti  to  the 
throne  of  Poland.  It  was  said  that  the  intrepidity  and 
resourcefulness   of  the  young   diplomat   were   largely  re- 

190 


Beaumarchais  and  the  Chevalier  D'Eon 

sponsible  for  the  success  of  the  negotiations,  and  that  he 
had  achieved  this  gratifying  result  by  remaining  behind, 
after  the  departure  of  his  chief,  disguising  himself  as  a 
woman,  and  getting  himself  appointed  as  ledrice  to  the 
Empress  Elizabeth.  This  was  probably  a  myth,  but  it 
was  widely  believed  at  the  time  and  was  later  vouched  for 
by  Elizabeth's  one-time  favourite— the  Princess  Dashkova. 
For  his  services  he  was  made,  first,  a  lieutenant  and  soon 
afterwards  a  captain  of  dragoons,  and  served  with 
distinction  in  the  later  stages  of  the  Seven  Years'  War,  in 
the  course  of  which  he  was  twice  badly  wounded.  On  the 
conclusion  of  the  campaign,  he  was  specially  chosen  as 
secretary  to  the  Due  de  Nivernais  in  his  mission  to  England 
to  negotiate  the  Peace  of  Versailles.  The  Due,  having  the 
utmost  confidence  in  his  character  and  ability,  consulted 
him  in  everything,  and  on  his  own  return  to  France,  exerted 
all  his  influence  to  procure  for  his  protege  the  post  of 
minister  plenipotentiary,  pending  the  appointment  of  the 
new  ambassador.  D'Eon  was  then  not  quite  thirty-six, 
and  this  rapid  success  completely  turned  his  head,  so  that 
when  the  Comte  de  Guerchy,  the  new  ambassador,  arrived 
some  months  later,  he  immediately  quarrelled  with  him  in 
the  most  scandalous  manner,  dechned  to  accept  his  dis- 
missal, and  refused  to  give  up  the  documents  relating  to 
the  bribery  and  corruption  by  which  the  Treaty  had 
been  engineered.  Attempt  after  attempt  was  made  by 
de  Guerchy  to  recover  the  papers  and  arrest  the  recal- 
citrant secretary,  but  the  latter  converted  his  house  into 
a  stronghold,  garrisoned  with  ex-dragoons,  and  defied  the 
ambassador  and  his  agents  to  do  their  worst ;  whilst  his 
astuteness  readily  overcame  every  stratagem  employed 
against  him.  Louis,  fearful  lest  his  secret  should  be 
betrayed,  sent  a  small  band  of  his  most  trusted  police 
officers  to  kidnap  the  rebel.  They  surrounded  the  house 
in  which  he  was  reported  to  be  taking  refuge  and  suddenly 
broke  into  his  sitting-room,  but  failed  to  recognize  their 
prey  in  the  elegant  lady  engaged  in  an  animated  con- 
versation with  the  old  gentlewoman  who  owned  the  house. 
At  last  Louis  himself  requested  the  Enghsh  Government  to 
extradite  the  Chevalier,  but  d'Eon  well  knew  that  the 
English  law  was  even  a  safer  protection  than  "  the  four 
pairs  of  pistols,  the  two  guns,  and  the  eight  sabres  "  of  his 

191 


Figaro  :   The  Life  of  Beaumarchais 

garrison,  and  Lord  Halifax,  when  questioned  on  the  sub- 
ject, said  :  "  He  had  better  keep  quiet  :  tell  him  his  con- 
duct is  abominable,  but  his  person  is  inviolable."  De 
Guerchy  was  at  last  compelled  to  confess  to  his  Sovereign 
the  failure  of  all  his  attempts  to  recover  the  papers. 

D'Eon  now  published  a  selection  of  the  documents 
in  a  witty  libellous  attack  on  the  ambassador  in  which 
he  accused  de  Guerchy  of  attempting  to  poison  him. 
The  scandal  reached  its  climax  when,  on  March  ist,  1765, 
the  case  came  before  Lord  Mansfield  at  the  Old  Bailey,  and 
the  Grand  Jury  returned  a  true  bill  against  the  Comte  for 
conspiracy  against  the  life  of  the  Chevalier.  In  great  glee 
at  this  astounding  success,  d'Eon  wrote  to  his  chief,  the 
Comte  de  Broglie  :  "  It  is  absolutely  necessary  that  you 
should  be  here  without  loss  of  time  .  .  .  This  is  the  last 
letter  which  I  shall  have  the  honour  of  writing  to  you  on 
the  subject  of  the  poisoner,  that  rascal  de  Guerchy,  who,  if 
he  had  his  deserts,  would  be  broken  on  the  wheel  in  France  ; 
but,  by  the  grace  of  God,  he  will  only  be  hanged  in  England." 

The  Government,  alarmed  by  the  dangerous  feeling 
aroused  in  the  two  countries,  caused  the  case  to  be  trans- 
ferred by  writ  to  the  Court  of  King's  Bench,  and  no 
further  action  was  taken.  The  position  of  the  ambassador, 
however,  before  long  became  intolerable,  and  he  returned 
to  France  a  few  years  later,  broken  in  health,  and  died 
shortly  afterwards,  it  is  said,  from  worry  over  the  ridicule 
and  disgrace  which  had  befallen  him. 

Louis,  thinking  it  inexpedient  to  drive  d'Eon  to  despe- 
ration, personally  wrote  a  flattering  letter  to  the  Chevalier 
announcing  that  he  had  decided  to  reward  him  for  his  many 
and  brilliant  services  by  granting  him  a  pension  of  12  000 
livres  for  life.  In  this,  the  King,  who  was  a  shrewd 
judge  of  men,  was  doubtless  actuated  not  only  by  fear 
for  the  keeping  of  his  secret  but  also  by  a  desire  to  retain 
in  his  hidden  diplomacy  d' Eon's  extraordinary  ability  for 
political  intrigue.  For  the  next  seven  years  the  Chevalier 
supplied  the  King,  through  de  Broglie,  with  a  series  of 
witty  and  sagacious  political  letters  on  English  affairs. 
Besides  this,  he  was  the  author  of  thirteen  octavo  volumes 
on  war,  national  administration,  general  political  prin- 
ciples, foreign  affairs  and  state  finance.  "  If  you  would 
know  what  I  am,"  he  wrote  to  the  Due  de  Prashn,   "  I 

192 


Beaumarchais  and  the  Chevalier  D'Eon 

tell  you  candidly  that  I  am  good  only  at  thinking, 
imagining,  questioning,  reflecting,  comparing,  reading, 
writing,  at  running  from  east  to  west,  from  north  to 
south,  and  at  fighting  everywhere.  If  I  had  lived  in 
the  time  of  Alexander  or  of  Don  Quixote,  I  should  as- 
suredly have  been  Parmenion  or  Sancho  Panza.  Taken 
out  of  my  element,  I  would  squander  the  revenue  of  France 
in  a  twelvemonth  and  then  write  you  an  admirable  treatise 
on  the  management  of  national  finance." 

Beaumarchais  and  d'Eon  came  into  contact  with  each 
other,  although  they  did  not  actually  meet,  at  the  time  of 
the  Morande  scandal.  The  Chevalier  had  offered  to  mduce 
the  blackmailer,  over  whom  he  claimed  considerable  in- 
fluence, to  abandon  his  project  on  payment  of  £800,  and 
was  on  the  point  of  concluding  the  bargain,  when  the  matter 
was  suddenly  taken  out  of  his  hands,  and,  as  he  says, 
"  the  Sieur  Caron  de  Beaumarchais  arrived  in  London, 
incognito,  escorted  by  the  Comte  de  Lauraguais  in  publico;' 
to  continue  the  negotiations. 

Before  accepting  their  enhanced  offer,  Morande  called 
to  consult  d'Eon,  and  mentioned  that  "  two  gentlemen 
were  waiting  in  their  carriage  at  the  corner  of  the  street 
to  confer  with  the  Chevalier."  The  latter  curtly  dechned 
to  see  them.  He  remarked,  however,  to  Morande  in 
dismissing  him  that  "  the  love  affairs  of  Kings  being  very 
delicate  matters  for  anybody  to  meddle  with,  he  was 
exposing  himself  to  the  perils  associated  with  the  calhng 
of  a  highwayman;  that  such  being  the  case,  he  was 
justified  in  demanding  the  largest  sum  out  of  the  richest 
coach  he  might  encounter,  and  that  his  own  contained 
only  eight  hundred  pounds  sterling." 

He  afterwards  heard  that  the  two  gentlemen  whom  he 
had  refused  to  see  "  were  the  unknown  Caron  de  Beau- 
marchais and  the  most  illustrious  and  well-known  Louis 
Francois  de  Brancas,  Comte  de  Lauraguais."  It  is  clear 
that  even  thus  early  there  was  no  love  lost  between  the  pair. 

It  was  about  1771  that  doubts  began  to  arise  as  to  the 
sex  of  this  ex-captain  of  dragoons  and  famous  swordsman. 
The  source  from  which  they  sprang  remains  a  mystery, 
and  the  Chevalier  himself  took  no  trouble  to  dispel  the 
rumours  ;  on  the  contrary,  he  seemed  rather  to  encourage 
the  questioners  by  his  equivocal  replies.     The  mystification 

193  13 


Figaro  :   The  Life  of  Beaumarchais 

soon  became  a  subject  of  absorbing  interest  in  sporting 
and  other  circles  of  "  high  Ufe  "  and  large  sums  of  money 
were  wagered  (according  to  Bachaumont  over  £100,000 
in  England  alone)  as  to  whether  d'Eon  was  a  woman  in 
disguise.  His  slight  figure,  high-pitched  voice  and  delicate 
features,  combined  with  the  care  he  took  to  avoid  any  close 
relationship  with  members  of  the  fair  sex,  seemed  to  support 
this  view.  It  may  be  noted  in  passing  that  these  extra- 
ordinary rumours  coincided  with  the  Chevalier's  serious 
financial  embarrassment,  brought  about  by  his  extravagant 
mode  of  living.  It  soon  became  a  generally  accepted 
opinion  that  he  was  indeed  a  woman,  and  at  last  he  himself 
admitted  the  soft  impeachment.  The  new  ambassador, 
M.  du  Chatelet,  hastened  to  inform  the  King  of  the  current 
belief,  which  he  himself  shared.  Even  the  shrewd  and 
worldly-wise  Casanova  was  taken  in  : 

"  The  King,"  he  wrote  in  his  Memoir es,  "  alone  knew 
and  always  had  known,  that  d'Eon  was  a  woman,  and  the 
entire  quarrel  between  the  sham  Chevalier  and  the  Foreign 
Ofhce  was  a  farce  which  the  King  allowed  to  be  played  for 
his  own  amusement  "  ;  whilst  the  grave  historian  of  French 
Diplomacy,  M.  de  Flassan,  writing  in  1809,  a  year  before 
the  Chevalier's  death,  testified  to  the  brilliant  services  of 
"  this  remarkable  but  wrong-headed  woman." 

On  the  death  of  Louis  XV.  his  secret  became  every- 
body's secret  and  the  agents  of  his  hidden  diplomacy  were 
dismissed  ;  but  on  the  intercession  of  the  Comte  de  Broglie, 
an  exception  was  made  in  the  case  of  d'Eon,  and  he  was 
informed  that  in  return  for  the  papers  in  his  possession  he 
would  be  allowed  to  return  to  France  and  his  pension 
would  be  assured  to  him  for  hfe.  But  the  Chevaher  in- 
dignantly refused.  He  was  overwhelmed  with  debts,  and 
an  ex-Minister  Plenipotentiary  of  France  and  a  Knight  of 
the  Order  of  St.  Louis  "  could  not  run  away — as  so  many 
worthless  Frenchmen  who  had  duped  the  generous  Enghsh, 
had  not  scrupled  to  do."  He  had  promised  "  never  to 
quit  the  island  until  he  had  met  all  his  engagements."  In 
other  words,  perhaps,  the  watch  on  foreign  debtors  had 
become  more  vigilant.  D'Eon  now  formally  declared 
to  the  new  King  and  the  Minister  for  Foreign  Affairs  the 
terms  he  was  willing  to  accept.  In  the  account  rendered, 
which  he  enclosed  in  his  letter,  he  claims  fifteen  years'  full 

194 


Beaumarchais  and  the  Chevalier  D*Eon 

pay  as  captain  of  dragoons,  the  reimbursement  of  the 
amount  he  had  recklessly  squandered  whilst  in  charge  of 
the  Legation  ;  with  the  cost  of  twelve  years'  food  and 
lodging  in  London  for  himself  and  his  cousin,  amounting 
to  100,000  livres  ;  another  6,000  livres,  the  value  of  a 
diamond  ring  offered  to  him  by  Prince  Poniatovsky  during 
his  mission  to  Russia,  which  he  had  then  refused ;  "  24,000 
livres  to  replace  the  thousand  guineas  which  the  King  of 
England  is  in  the  habit  of  bestowing  upon  Ministers  Pleni- 
potentiary residing  at  his  Court,  but  had  been  dissuaded 
by  Guerchy  from  giving  him  ;  27,000  livres  to  cover  the 
estimated  value  of  certain  family  papers  lost  by  Hugonnet 
at  the  time  of  his  arrest ;  and  15,000  livres  for  the  loss  he 
had  incurred  through  being  unable  to  look  after  his  vine- 
yards during  the  past  ten  years."  These,  with  several  other 
items,  brought  his  total  claim  up  to  about  300,000  livres. 

Louis  XVL  declared  that  he  had  never  seen  "  a  more 
impertinent  and  preposterous  document  than  d' Eon's 
statement,  and  but  for  the  importance  of  the  papers  in  his 
hands,  he  would  certainly  have  nothing  more  to  do  with 
him." 

It  v/as  in  the  spring  of  1775  that  Beaumarchais  and 
d'Eon  first  made  acquaintance,  "  led,  no  doubt,"  as  the 
Chevalier  afterwards  asserted,  "  by  a  curiosity  natural  to 
extraordinary  animals  to  seek  each  other's  society."  As 
a  matter  of  fact,  however,  it  was  he  who  made  the  pre- 
liminary advances,  through  Morande.  In  their  first 
interview,  d'Eon,  (who  had  the  feminine  gift  of  tears) 
distressfully  admitted  to  the  father  of  Figaro  that  he  was 
really  a  woman,  and  proceeded  to  relate  a  touching  narra- 
tive of  the  misfortunes  and  embarrassments  of  his  life, 
proudly  claiming,  however,  to  have  preserved  through  the 
noisy  promiscuity  of  army  life  and  the  perils  of  desperate 
sieges  and  battles,  "  that  flower  of  purity,  the  precious 
but  fragile  token,  alas  !  of  our  morality  and  faith  !  " 
The  biographers  of  the  protagonists  in  this  amazing  comedy 
would  have  us  believe  that  Beaumarchais,  the  astute  and 
experienced  man  of  the  world,  was  completely  duped  and 
outwitted.  In  this  we  differ  from  them.  But,  however 
this  may  be,  the  Chevalier  certainly  succeeded  in  interest- 
ing Beaumarchais  in  his  case,  or  the  pair  may  possibly 
have  come  to  a  secret  understanding.     From  the  bitterness 

195  13* 


Figaro  :   The  Life  of  Beaumarchais 

with  which  d'Eon  after  their  final  quarrel  always  spoke 
of  Beaumarchais  and  his  satellite  Morande,  we  are  inclined 
to  think  this  was  probably  the  case.  At  any  rate,  Beau- 
marchais decided  to  intervene  on  the  Chevalier's  behalf, 
and  wrote  to  the  King  :  "I  venture  to  assure  you.  Sire, 
that  this  astonishing  creature,  if  treated  with  kindness 
and  consideration,  will,  though  soured  by  twelve  years 
of  misfortune,  be  easily  amenable  to  discipline,  and  will, 
upon  reasonable  terms,  give  up  the  papers  relative  to  the 
late  King." 

From  the  care  which  Beaumarchais  takes,  in  at  least 
the  early  part  of  this  correspondence,  to  avoid  the  use 
of  personal  pronouns,  it  is  clear  to  us  what  he  then  con- 
sidered to  be  the  nature  of  d'Eon's  misfortune.  In  spite  of 
the  fact  revealed  at  the  inquest  thirty-two  years  later,  we 
think  the  author  of  The  Barber  of  Seville  made  quite  a 
shrewd  guess,  and  that  the  real  explanation  of  the 
Chevalier's  ultimate  willingness  to  comply  with  the  King's 
command  to  adopt  feminine  attire  for  the  rest  of  his  life, 
is  to  be  sought  in  an  abnormal  sexual  psychology,  combined 
with  a  craving  for  notoriety  and  the  hope  of  escaping  by 
this  means  from  his  ever-increasing  financial  difficulties. 

Upon  his  return  to  Paris,  Beaumarchais,  upon  his  own 
suggestion,  was  commissioned  by  the  Comte  de  Vergennes 
to  resume  the  negotiations  with  d'Eon,  and  he  at  once 
left  for  London  bearing  an  official  letter  praising  the 
Chevalier's  "  zeal,  intelligence  and  loyalty,"  and  a  solemn 
undertaking,  for  his  signature,  to  keep  quiet  and  to  let 
the  King  hear  no  more  of  his  scandalous  feud  with  the 
de  Guerchy  family.  He  was  also  required  to  give  up  the 
papers  without  more  ado,  and  on  these  terms  he  was  to 
be  allowed  to  return  to  France  and  to  be  guaranteed  his 
pension  for  life.  After  considerable  haggling  d'Eon  was 
prevailed  upon  to  accept  these  conditions,  but  explained 
that  he  had  been  obliged  to  hand  over  the  iron  chest 
containing  the  documents  to  his  friend  the  English  Admiral, 
Lord  Ferrers,  as  security  for  a  loan  of  ;f 5,000,  which  he  was 
quite  unable  to  repay.  He  gave  Beaumarchais,  however, 
the  key  of  the  strong  box,  and  with  this  proof  of  good- 
will in  his  possession,  the  negotiator  wrote  exultingly  to 
Vergennes  : 

"  I  place  at  your  disposal,  M.  le  Comte,  Captain  d'Eon, 
196 


Beaumarchais  and  the  Chevalier  D'Eon 

a  brave  officer,  an  accomplished  diplomat,  possessing  all 
the  virile  qualities  so  far  as  his  head  is  concerned.  He 
brings  to  the  King  the  key  of  an  iron  safe,  securely  sealed 
with  my  own  seal,  and  containing  all  the  papers  it  is 
necessary  for  the  King  to  recover." 

So  far,  so  good.  But  the  Minister  of  Foreign  Affairs, 
perhaps  on  the  suggestion  of  Beaumarchais,  and  as  the 
readiest  means  of  preventing  a  recurrence  of  the  de 
Guerchy  scandal,  now  stipulated  that  since  d'Eon  was  a 
woman,  he  should  officially  declare  the  fact,  and  for  the 
future  take  to  feminine  apparel. 

Beaumarchais  was  now  entrusted  with  full  powers  to 
sign,  in  the  King's  name,  an  unconsciously  humorous 
convention,  drawn  up  by  himself,  in  the  form  of  a  treaty 
between  sovereign  states,  under  which  "  Demoiselle  Charles 
Genevieve  Louise  Auguste  An  dree  Timothee  d'Eon  de 
Beaumont,  spinster,  hitherto  known  by  the  name  of  the 
Chevalier  d'Eon,  squire,  formerly  Captain  of  Dragoons, 
Knight  of  the  Royal  and  Military  Order  of  St.  Louis, 
etc.,  etc.  .  ."  was  required  "  to  abandon  her  disguise,  the 
responsibility  of  which  rests  entirely  with  her  relatives, 
and  whilst  rendering  full  justice  to  the  prudent,  decorous, 
and  circumspect  conduct  she  has  at  all  times  observed 
in  the  dress  of  her  adoption  whilst  preserving  a  manly  and 
vigorous  bearing ;  I  (Beaumarchais)  require  absolutely 
that  the  ambiguity  of  her  sex,  which  has  offered  inex- 
haustible material  for  gossip,  indecent  betting,  and  idle 
jesting  liable  to  be  renewed,  especially  in  France,  which 
her  pride  would  not  tolerate,  and  which  would  give  rise 
to  fresh  quarrels  that  would  only  serve,  perhaps,  to 
palliate  and  revive  former  ones — I  require,  absolutely, 
I  say,  in  the  name  of  the  King,  that  the  phantom  Chevalier 
d'Eon  shall  entirely  disappear,  and  that  the  public  mind 
shall  be  for  ever  set  at  rest  by  a  distinct,  precise, 
and  unambiguous  declaration,  publicly  made,  of  the 
true  sex  of  Charles  Genevieve  Louise  Auguste  Andree 
Timothee  d'Eon  de  Beaumont  before  she  returns  to  France, 
and  by  her  resumption  of  female  attire  ..."  and  so  on, 
with  the  other  stipulations  as  indicated  above.  It  is 
surely  one  of  the  strangest  documents  which  has  ever 
found  its  way  into  the  official  archives  of  any  modern 
state. 

197 


Figaro  :   The  Life  of  Beau  mar  chais 

When  asked  how  on  earth  he  had  come  to  consent 
to  such  a  humihation,  the  Chevaher  said  that  "  Like  a 
drowning  man,  abandoned  by  the  King  and  his  ministers 
to  the  current  of  a  foul  river,  he  endeavoured  to  chng 
to  Caron's  boat."     He  could  never  resist  a  joke. 

Accompanied  by  the  ex-dragoon,  Beaumarchais  now 
rapidly  examined  the  contents  of  the  strong-box  left  in 
the  hands  of  Lord  Ferrers,  for,  as  he  says,  the  chest  might 
have  contained  nothing  but  "  washing  bills  "  for  aught 
he  knew.  Having  satisfied  himself  on  this  point,  he  paid 
off  the  alleged  mortgage,  carefully  sealed  the  papers  and 
despatched  them  to  the  King. 

There  now  ensued  between  the  Chevaher,  Beaumarchais, 
de  Vergennes,  and  the  King  an  animated  correspondence 
in  which  d'Eon  sustained  the  part  of  a  sentimental  and 
querulous  but  witty  old  maid  with  astonishing  cleverness, 
and  the  reader  is  tempted  to  exclaim  with  Basile,  in  The 
Barber  of  Seville  :  "  Who  the  devil  is  it  they  are  fooling 
here  :    everybody  seems  to  be  in  the  secret  !  " 

To  Vergennes,  Beaumarchais  wrote,  "  Everybody  tells 
me  that  this  crazy  creature  is  in  love  with  me  ;  who  the 
devil  could  have  thought  that  in  order  to  serve  the  King 
faithfully,  I  should  have  to  dance  gahant  attendance  upon 
a  captain  of  dragoons  ?  The  adventure  seems  to  me  so 
farcical  that  I  have  the  greatest  difficulty  in  finishing 
my  report  with  becoming  gravity." 

The  Chevalier,  however,  considered  that  he  had  not 
been  sufficiently  paid,  and  when  he  saw  that  no  more 
money  was  to  be  extracted  from  Beaumarchais,  he  turned 
savagely  upon  him  in  the  English  papers,  and  privately 
and  publicly  missed  no  opportunity  of  denouncing  him. 
To  de  Vergennes  he  reviled  him  in  the  most  outrageous 
terms.  The  former  "  guardian  angel  "  of  an  interesting 
lady  in  distress  had  now  become  "  a  fool,"  "  a  puppy,"  "  a 
jackanapes,"  who  ''  could  only  be  compared  with  Olivier 
Le  Dain,  the  barber,  not  of  Seville,  but  of  Louis  XL" 
Lastly  "  He  had  the  insolence,"  he  declared,  "  of  a  clock- 
maker's  boy  who  has  by  chance  stumbled  upon  the  secret 
of  perpetual  motion." 

With  this  shrewd  and  brilhant  thrust  we  take  leave 
of  him  :  he  never  crossed  the  path  of  Beaumarchais  again. 

198 


The  Chevalier  D'Eon  de  Beaumont. 
From  the  miuialnre  by  R.   Cosway,   R.A.     Engraved  by   T.   Chambers.    1787. 


[To  face  p.   198. 


CHAPTER    XXI 

THE    REHABILITATION    OF   BEAUMARCHAIS 

WITHIN  a  fortnight  of  the  royal  edict  which  abolished 
the  Parlement  Maupeou,   Beaumarchais  wrote  to 
M.  de  Sartine  : 

"  I  hope  you  do  not  wish  that  I  should  remain  under 
the  obloquy  cast  upon  me  by  that  hateful  Parlement  which 
you  have  just  interred  beneath  the  ruins  of  its  honour. 
The  whole  of  Europe  has  avenged  me  for  the  odious  and 
absurd  sentence  ;  but  that  is  not  enough  :  a  decree  rescind- 
ing that  pronouncement  is  necessary.  I  am  going  to  work 
for  it  with  the  moderation  of  a  man  who  no  longer  fears 
either  intrigue  or  injustice.  I  rely  upon  your  good 
offices  in  this  important  matter." 

This,  however,  was  only  a  discreet  reminder,  for 
although  the  sentence  had  in  the  meantime  become 
definitive,  Beaumarchais  was  in  no  hurry  for  his  case  to 
be  again  brought  forward  until  he  had  won  over  the  new 
Minister,  M.  de  Maurepas,  for  he  wanted  the  sentence 
annulled,  not  as  an  act  of  grace,  but  of  justice.  He  no 
sooner  felt  that  his  services  had  favourably  disposed 
that  nobleman  towards  him  than  he  set  to  work  with  his 
accustomed  energy,  with  the  result  that  on  the  12th 
August,  1776,  the  King  granted  him  letters  patent,  extend- 
ing the  time  allotted  before  the  decree  was  made  absolute. 

The  next  step  was  to  obtain  letters  of  appeal  by  writ 
of  error  for  rescinding  the  judgment  rendered  against 
him.  Unfortunately,  this  action  had  to  come  before  the 
Grand  Council,  which  was  largely  composed  of  the  judges 
who  had  been  dismissed  on  the  fall  of  the  former 
Parlement  and  reinstated  in  the  new. 

199 


Figaro  :   The  Life  of  Beaumarchais 

At  this  moment  Beaumarchais  was  ordered  to  proceed 
to  Bordeaux  to  organize  the  expedition  in  aid  of  the 
revolted  American  Colonies  of  England,  to  which  he  had, 
after  persistent  efforts,  at  last  obtained  the  King's  grudging 
consent,  under  circumstances  which  we  must  describe  in 
a  future  chapter.  Before  leaving  Paris,  M.  de  Maurepas 
assured  him  that  his  presence  would  not  be  necessary, 
and  he  could  set  out  with  his  mind  at  rest.  The  day  after 
his  arrival  at  Bordeaux  with  Gudin,  he  heard  that  the 
Grand  Council  had  refused  to  allow  his  appeal.  Without 
a  moment's  delay  the  travellers  dashed  back  to  Paris, 
and  Beaumarchais  burst  in  upon  the  astonished  Minister, 
exclaiming  :  "  What  is  this  I  hear  ?  There  am  I  running 
to  the  confines  of  France  to  forward  the  King's  affairs, 
whilst  you  ruin  mine  at  Versailles  !  " 

"It  is  only  one  of  Miromesnil's  blunders,"  airily 
explained  Maurepas  ;  "go  and  tell  him  I  want  to  have  a 
word  with  him  and  return  here  :  we  will  talk  it  over 
together."  The  matter  was  soon  adjusted  and  the 
appeal  admitted  in  a  slightly  different  form. 

Then  another  difficulty  arose  :  the  Grand  Council  was 
going  into  recess  at  the  end  of  August  and  was  not  dis- 
posed to  hear  the  appeal  until  the  next  session.  But  this 
delay  did  not  suit  Beaumarchais  at  all.  He  called  upon 
the  Comte  de  Maurepas,  with  a  carefully  drafted  letter 
in  duplicate,  addressed  to  the  President  of  the  Council 
and  the  Attorney-General  respectively,  all  ready  for  the 
Comte's  signature,  urging  them  as  a  personal  favour  to 
have  the  case  dealt  with  before  the  recess,  "  in  order  that 
M.  de  Beaumarchais  might  proceed  with  a  tranquil  mind 
on  the  important  mission  with  which  the  King  has  en- 
trusted him."  The  Comte  signed  and  despatched  both 
letters  without  demur. 

Three  days  later,  Beaumarchais  addressed  a  further 
letter  to  M.  de  Maurepas  informing  him  that  M.  Seguier, 
the  Solicitor-General,  had  remarked,  on  hearing  of  the 
steps  taken  by  the  Comte  to  expedite  the  case,  that 
"  such  a  recommendation  would  have  made  him  very 
eloquent  in  this  matter."  Beaumarchais  concluded  by 
saying  :  "  All  I  ask,  M.  le  Comte,  is  for  your  signature 
and  seal  on  the  enclosed  letter,  and  in  a  moment  my 
affairs  will  acquire  wings,  and  to  you   I   shall   owe  the 

200 


The  Rehabilitation  of  Beaumarchais 

recovery,  fully  three  months  sooner,  of  my  citizenship,  of 
which  I  ought  never  to  have  been  deprived." 

The  enclosure  addressed  to  the  Solicitor-General  was  in 
these  terms  : 

"  Versailles, 

"  30th  August,  1776. 
"  I  understand.  Sir,  from  M.  de  Beaumarchais,  that 
unless  you  do  him  the  favour  of  speaking  on  his  behalf, 
it  will  be  impossible  for  him  to  obtain  judgment  until 
after  the  7th  September.  That  part  of  the  King's  service 
in  the  charge  of  M.  de  Beaumarchais  will  necessitate  his 
almost  immediately  setting  out  on  a  journey  ;  but  he 
dreads  having  to  leave  Paris  before  recovering  his  rights 
of  citizenship,  and  he  has  suffered  so  long  under  this  de- 
privation that  his  desire  in  this  respect  is  entirely  legitimate. 
I  do  not,  of  course,  ask  for  any  favour  in  the  consideration 
of  the  appeal  itself,  but  you  would  oblige  me  extremely 
if  you  could  see  your  way  to  assist  in  getting  the  case  heard 
before  the  recess." 


M.  de  Maurepas  signed,  sealed,  and  despatched  this 
missive  as  readily  as  he  had  done  the  other. 

These  wily  tactics  were  completely  successful,  and  on 
the  6th  September,  1776,  a  decree  of  the  Parlement  in 
full  session  assembled,  revoked  the  sentence  on  Beaumar- 
chais, and  restored  to  him  his  full  citizen  rights.  The 
verdict  was  received  with  enthusiasm  by  the  crowded 
audience,  and  the  hero  was  carried  shoulder  high  from  the 
Chamber  to  his  carriage. 

He  had  hoped  to  deliver  a  speech  which  he  had  care- 
fully prepared  for  the  occasion,  but  his  friends  dissuaded 
him  from  this  course  ;  so  he  straightway  published  it  in 
pamphlet  form.  In  this  composition  he  boldly  cham- 
pioned the  people's  rights,  and  did  not  for  a  moment  for- 
get that  most  of  the  abuses  under  the  former  Parlement 
persisted  in  the  new.  With  corrosive  irony  he  attacked 
the  legal  procedure  of  his  day,  and  demanded  drastic 
reform  of  the  judicature.  Under  his  resounding  blows,  the 
system  began  to  show  the  first  signs  of  the  vulnerability 
which  was  to  bring  it  crashing  to  the  ground  in  the  early 


Figaro  :   The  Life  of  Beaumarchais 

days  of  the  Revolution.  But  Beaumarchais,  intent  upon 
his  fight  for  personal  justice,  little  suspected  the  tremen- 
dous repercussion  which  these  first  shocks  to  authority 
were  destined  so  soon  to  produce  :  the  future  is  hidden 
even  from  those  who  are  shaping  it. 


202 


CHAPTER  XXII 

BEAUMARCHAIS    IN    CONFLICT   WITH   THE    PLAYERS 

ONE  of  the  greatest  difficulties  which  besets  the 
biographer  of  Beaumarchais  is  the  multiphcity  and 
the  variety  of  the  affairs  which  occupied  his  attention  at 
the  same  time.  He  had  a  wonderful  power  of  instantly 
dismissing  a  matter  from  his  mind,  concentrating  on 
wholly  different  business,  and  at  any  moment  turning  back 
to  take  up  the  work  he  was  originally  engaged  upon  at  the 
precise  point  where  he  had  left  it.  He  called  this  "  shutting 
and  re-opening  the  drawer  of  an  affair." 

In  spite  of  the  complex  and  worrying  nature  of  the 
various  transactions  engaging  his  time  and  energy,  he  now 
came  forward  as  the  champion  of  the  dramatists,  against 
the  greed  and  sharp  practice  of  the  actors  and  actresses 
of  the  Theatre  Fran^ais.  For  the  past  thirty  years  the 
Company  of  the  premier  theatre  had  taken  such  unfair 
advantage  of  the  arbitrary  and  equivocal  state  of  the 
law  regulating  the  fees  due  to  the  playwrights,  that  some 
of  the  leading  dramatists  of  the  day,  including  Sedaine 
(author  of  that  ever  fresh  and  delightful  study  of 
feminine  psychology  in  action  La  Gageure  Ii7iprevue  and 
the  better  known  but  less  attractive  Philosophe  sans  le 
savoir),  had  been  compelled  to  take  his  plays  to  the  Comedie 
Italienne,  the  company  of  which  were  not  quite  such 
ruthless  exponents  of  the  "  skin  game."  The  clause  in 
the  regulations  which  gave  the  authors  such  just  cause 
for  complaint  was  that  which  awarded  to  the  players  all 
future  rights  in  a  piece  if  the  receipts  taken  at  a  single 
performance  fell  below  a  certain  figure. 

Although  everybody  tacitly  acknowledges  that  all  things 
in  life  are  imperfect,  few  act  as  though  they  really  believe 
it,  and  the  fine  gentlemen  who  formulated  this  extraordinary 

203 


Figaro  :   The  Life  of  Beaumarchais 

rule  had  clearly  failed  to  make  due  allowance  for  human 
frailty.  They  soon  reaUzed  that  the  players'  sense  of 
justice  was  not  perfect,  for  immediately  a  piece  proved 
successful,  the  members  of  the  Comedie  Frangaise  contrived 
a  performance  at  which  the  stipulated  amount  should  not 
be  reached,  withdrew  it  for  a  time,  and  revived  it  after 
a  brief  interval,  appropriating  all  the  profits.  This  naturally 
led  to  constant  and  unseemly  disputes,  which  the  actors 
invariably  won,  now  through  dividing  the  ranks  of  their 
opponents  by  gratifying  the  vanity  of  the  more  accommo- 
dating dramatists  in  giving  the  preference  to  their  pieces, 
and  now  by  deputing  the  most  seductive  actresses  of  the 
company,  to  plead  their  cause  before  the  Dues  de  Richelieu 
and  Duras,  the  Court  officials  then  in  charge  of  theatrical 
affairs.  These  noblemen,  however,  had  long  since  dis- 
covered that  the  various  anomalies  in  the  regulations 
were  not  conducive  to  the  quiet  enjoyment  of  their  sine- 
cure. The  first  of  these  gentlemen  was  an  old  man,  at 
this  time  much  worried  over  the  winding-up  of  a  peculiarly 
scandalous  intrigue  with  a  well-known  society  woman, 
which  had  rendered  him  unusually  wary  of  feminine 
blandishments.  The  other  was  one  of  those  indecisive, 
ineffectual  people,  who  are  always  firmly  of  the  opinion 
of  the  last  person  who  speaks  to  them,  and  waste  their 
powers  running  hither  and  thither,  hke  a  harassed  fowl 
that  knows  not  where  to  lay  its  egg. 

Although  Beaumarchais  had  spontaneously  made  over 
to  the  company  all  rights  in  his  first  two  plays,  the  success  of 
The  Barber  of  Seville  was  no  sooner  assured  than  they  with- 
drew the  piece.  This  was  after  the  thirty-second  perform- 
ance.    Beaumarchais  waited  upon  them  for  an  explanation. 

"  At  a  full  meeting  of  the  company,"  he  wrote,  "  one 
of  the  actors  asked  whether  it  was  my  intention  to  give 
my  piece  to  the  Comedie,  or  to  insist  on  having  my  royalties. 
I  laughingly  replied,  like  Sganarelle  :  '  I  will  give  it  if 
I  wish  to  give  it,  and  I  will  not  give  it  if  I  do  not  wish  to 
give  it.'  One  of  the  leading  actors  became  insistent. 
'  If  you  do  not  give  it,'  he  said,  '  at  least  tell  us  how  many 
times  you  wish  it  to  be  played  before  it  is  allowed  to  fall 
under  the  rules  and  become  our  property.' 

"  *  Where  is  the  necessity  that  it  should  belong  to 
you,  gentlemen  ?  ' 

304 


Beau  mar  chais  in  conflict  with  tlie  Players 

"  '  Many  authors  make  this  arrangement  with  us.' 

"  '  They  are  inimitable  authors,  then.' 

"  '  They  are  very  well  satisfied,  sir  ;  for  if  they  no 
longer  share  in  the  profits  of  their  work  at  least  they  have 
the  pleasure  of  seeing  it  produced  more  often.  The 
Comedie  always  responds  to  considerate  treatment.  Do 
you  wish  to  draw  royalties  on  six,  eight,  or  even  ten  more 
performances  ?     Tell  us  your  views.' 

"  I  thought  the  proposition  so  cool,"  continued  Beau- 
marchais,  "  that  I  answered  in  the  same  tone  :  *  Since 
you  wish  to  know,  I  ask  that  it  be  played  a  thousand  and 
one  times.'  " 

"  *  Sir,  you  are  excessively  modest.' 

"  *  As  modest,  gentlemen,  as  you  are  just.  What  a 
mania  is  this  to  inherit  the  goods  of  those  who  are  not 
dead  !  As  my  piece  can  belong  to  you  only  by  the  receipts 
falHng  to  a  very  low  figure,  you  ought  rather  to  wish  that 
it  should  never  belong  to  you.  Are  not  eight-ninths  of  a 
hundred  louis  more  desirable  than  nine-ninths  of  fifty. 
I  see,  gentlemen,  that  you  love  your  own  interests  better 
than  you  understand  them.'  I  laughed  and  bowed  to 
the  assembly,  which  gave  me  an  answering  smile,  as  its 
orator  was  observed  to  colour  slightly." 

The  Due  de  Richelieu,  tired  of  the  continual  quarrels, 
which  interfered  with  the  quietude  so  congenial  to  a 
voluptuary  of  advancing  age,  welcomed  the  intervention 
of  Beaumarchais,  then  probably  the  richest  man  of  letters 
of  his  time,  for  he  knew  he  could  rely  on  his  impartiality 
since  he  was  better  liked  by  the  actors  than  by  his 
fellow  authors.  The  Marechal,  therefore,  invited  him, 
on  behalf  of  the  dramatists,  to  endeavour  to  come  to  some 
satisfactory  arrangement  with  the  players,  and  report 
to  him.  Having  provided  himself  with  a  letter  from  the 
Due,  Beaumarchais  waited  upon  the  company,  requesting 
to  be  allowed  to  examine  their  books.  This  was  indignantly 
refused.  At  this  rebuff,  the  negotiator  felt  considerable 
hesitation  as  to  the  next  step  he  ought  to  take,  for  he  was 
loath  to  upset  the  cordial  relations  which  had  hitherto 
existed  between  the  players  and  himself.  Moreover,  his 
hands  were  so  full  of  other  matters  that  he  was  not  eager 
to  add  to  his  responsibilities  ;  but  on  the  urgent  solici- 
tation of  several  of  his  less  fortunate  colleagues,  and  not 

205 


Figaro  :   The  Life  of  Beaumarchais 

wishing  to  be  robbed  on  his  own  account,  he  sent  in  a  claim 
for  an  exact  statement  of  the  amount  due  to  him.  There- 
upon, Desessarts,  who  had  studied  law  before  becoming 
an  actor,  was  deputed  by  the  company  to  sound  Beau- 
marchais as  to  his  intentions,  and  to  proffer  4,506  livres, 
which  they  declared  was  the  amount  of  royalties  due 
on  the  first  thirty-two  performances  of  The  Barber.  As 
the  delegate  brought  no  statement,  Beaumarchais  sent  the 
money  back.  Three  days  later  he  sent  another  claim 
for  a  statement  of  account.  After  a  fortnight's  delay, 
they  sent  him  an  unsigned  memorandum.  This  also  he 
returned,  pointing  out  that  his  demand  was  reasonable 
and  insisting  on  having  a  properly  certified  account.  The 
players  replied  that  this  was  impossible. 

"  A  perusal  of  the  obliging  letter,"  wrote  Beaumarchais, 
"  signed  by  several  of  your  members,  with  which  you 
have  honoured  me,  confirms  me  in  the  opinion  that  you  are 
all  upright  people  eager  to  do  justice  to  the  authors,  but 
that,  like  all  men  more  practised  in  the  fine  arts  than  in 
the  exact  sciences,  in  dealing  with  figures,  you  allov/  your 
imagination  to  create  bogies  and  entanglements  which 
any  person  with  the  least  method  would  solve  without 
difficulty."  He  then  proceeded  to  initiate  the  company 
into  the  mysteries  of  book-keeping.  But  all  his  wit  and 
aplomb  went  for  nothing,  and  the  players  intimated  their 
intention  of  taking  legal  advice  on  the  matter.  Beau- 
marchais reported  this  failure  to  the  Due  de  Richelieu, 
who  referred  him  to  his  colleague  the  Due  de  Duras,  who 
referred  him  back  again  to  the  Due  de  Richelieu.  The 
latter  put  his  foot  down  and  refused  to  be  disturbed. 
Beaumarchais  next  determined  to  get  the  dramatists 
together  in  the  hope  of  formulating  a  common  policy. 
To  this  end  he  invited  all  who  had  had  one  or  more  plan's 
performed  to  dine  with  him  and  discuss  their  position. 
This  was  not  so  easy  as  it  looked,  for  the  authors  had  been 
used  to  fighting  single-handed,  some  were  old  and  apathetic, 
and  some  were  jealous  of  each  other,  and  yet  others  were 
even  then  engaged  in  acrimonious  and  long-standing 
quarrels. 

The  first  to  respond  were  the  three  Academicians 
Saurin,  Marmontel,  and  La  Harpe.  The  two  former 
writers  accepted  the  invitation  without  difficulty,  but  La 

206 


Beaumarchais  in  conflict  with  the  Players 

Harpe  excused  himself  from  attending  on  the  ground 
that  he  never  dined  out,  but  that  he  would  come  after 
dinner,  adding,  however  :  "I  ought  to  warn  you  that 
if  M.  Sauvign}^  or  M.  Dorat  are  likely  to  be  present  I  shall 
not  come.  You  are  too  much  a  man  of  the  world  to  expect 
me  to  hob-nob  with  my  declared  enemies." 

Beaumarchais  endeavoured  to  soothe  the  irascible 
Academician  and  induce  him  to  forget  his  personal  ani- 
mosities for  the  common  good,  as  he  had  already  invited 
the  writers  in  question,  who  had  accepted  with  alacrity. 
But  the  eminent  critic  proved  implacable,  and  Beaumar- 
chais was  obliged  to  dispense  with  his  collaboration  for 
at  least  the  first  sitting.  Like  most  contentious  people 
La  Harpe  had  acquired  an  undeserved  reputation  for 
intellectual  honesty  ;  but  contentiousness  is  more  often  a 
sign  of  ill-breeding  or  bad  temper  than  sincerity. 

Colle  also  sent  excuses.  He  was  not  in  Paris,  he  said, 
and  even  if  he  had  been  he  would  have  to  confess,  "  with 
my  usual  frankness,  that  I  could  not  have  had  the  honour 
of  being  present.  I  am  old  and  disgusted  to  the  point 
of  nausea  with  the  delightful  royal  troupe.  God  send  us 
another  !  For  the  past  three  years  I  have  met  neither 
comedians  nor  comediennes  : 

De  tous  ces  gens-la 
J 'en  ai  j  usque-la. 

"Nevertheless,  sir,  I  wish  your  project  every  success  ; 
but  permit  me  to  confine  myself  to  good  wishes.  If  any 
man  other  than  yourself  were  at  the  head  of  the  enter- 
prise I  should  doubt  of  its  success  ;  but  you,  sir,  have 
proved  to  the  public  that  to  3^ou  nothing  is  impossible  ! 
I  have  always  thought  that  you  did  not  care  about  anything 
that  was  easy.  I  came  to  this  conclusion  on  seeing  the 
hardihood  you  have  displayed  in  making  our  gentle  nation 
laugh  in  spite  of  itself,  for  hitherto  it  has  been  willing  only 
to  weep  over  the  theatrical  representation  of  virtues  it 
has  no  intention  whatever  of  emulating." 

We  have  heard  the  author  of  Dupuis  et  Des  Ronnais 
speaking,  "  with  his  usual  frankness,"  in  quite  another 
tone  of  the  author  of  Eugenie  ;  but  Beaumarchais  had 
now,  clearly,  become  a  man  whom  it  was  well  to  conciliate. 

The  next  person  to  be  approached  by  the  indefatig- 
207 


Figaro  :    The  Life  of  Beaumarchais 

able  champion  of  authors'  rights  was  a  star  of  greater 
magnitude.  But  Diderot,  the  hero  of  a  hundred  fights, 
preferred  to  leave  the  conduct  of  the  new  campaign  to  the 
younger  and  more  energetic  men. 

"  So  there  you  are,  sir,"  he  wrote,  "  at  the  head  of  an 
insurrection  of  dramatic  poets  against  the  players  !  .  .  . 
As  for  me  I  pass  my  time  in  the  country  as  much  a  stranger 
to  the  affairs  of  the  town  as  forgotten  by  its  inhabitants. 
Allow  me  to  confine  myself  to  prayers  for  your  success. 
While  you  do  the  fighting,  I  will  lift  up  my  arms  towards 
Heaven  on  the  heights  of  Meudon.  May  the  men  of 
letters  who  deliver  battle  to  the  players  owe  to  you  their 
independence  ! 

"  But  to  tell  you  the  truth,  I  very  much  fear  that  it 
will  be  harder  to  get  the  better  of  a  troupe  of  comedians 
than  of  a  Parlement.  Here  ridicule  will  not  have  the 
same  force.  Never  mind  !  your  effort  will  be  none  the  less 
just  and  none  the  less  honourable.  I  greet  and  embrace  you." 

Beaumarchais  succeeded  in  assembling  twenty-three 
writers  at  the  first  meeting,  and  an  executive  committee 
was  appointed,  consisting  of  himself  as  president,  Sedaine, 
Saurin  and  Marmontel.  But  even  the  preliminary 
difficulties  were  by  no  means  at  an  end,  for  whilst  the 
players  presented  a  united  front,  the  authors  had  scarcely 
met  before  disagreements  broke  out  amongst  them,  and 
the  solution  of  the  problem  seemed  almost  as  far  off  as 
ever.  Only  those  who  have  seen  the  mass  of  correspond- 
ence on  this  subject  can  form  any  conception  of  the 
magnitude  of  the  founder's  labours. 

The  question  was  not  definitely  settled  until  the  13th 
January,  1791,  when  the  Constituent  Assembly  accepted 
in  principle  an  author's  exclusive  control  over  the  products 
of  his  pen,  and  to  the  end  of  his  life  Beaumarchais  continued 
to  act  as  the  jealous  guardian  of  the  rights  which  he  had 
done  more  than  any  other  to  establish.  As  Sainte-Beuve 
justly  remarked  :  ''  The  Society  of  Dramatic  Authors 
ought  never  to  meet  without  saluting  the  bust  of  Beau- 
marchais." The  members  of  to-day  have  an  opportunity 
of  paying  such  tribute,  for  a  fine  bust  of  the  founder,  by 
H.  Allouard,  now  occupies  the  place  of  honour  in  the 
Assembly  Hall  of  that  influential  Society. 

208 


CHAPTER    XXIII 

IN    WHICH    BEAUMARCHAIS    CLOSES    HIS    ACCOUNT   WITH   THE 
COMTE    DE    LA   BLACHE 

EIGHT  years  had  passed  since  the  Comte  de  la  Blache 
had  pkmged  Beaumarchais  mto  a  sea  of  troubles, 
from  which  he  had  emerged,  like  the  son  of  Thetis  from 
the  Styx,  invulnerable — or,  at  any  rate,  as  invulnerable  as 
it  is  given  any  mortal  to  be — for  battling  in  the  flood, 
which  threatened  at  an}^  moment  to  engulf  him,  had 
taught  Pierre  Augustin  one  of  life's  most  valuable  lessons  : 
to  hope  for  the  best,  prepare  for  the  worst,  and  play  the 
hand  vvhich  Fate  deals  out  to  3^ou  calmly  to  the  end. 

The  judgment  rendered  against  him  was  revoked  by 
the  Grand  Council  at  the  end  of  1775,  and  the  case  referred 
to  the  Provengal  Parlement  for  a  final  hearing.  The 
decisive  conflict  between  Beaumarchais  and  the  most 
obstinate  of  his  adversaries  took  place,  according^,  at 
Aix  in  July,  1778.  Having  stolen  a  march  on  his  opponent 
(who  was  bus}^  preparing  for  the  American  expedition), 
the  Comte  deluged  the  country  with  copies  of  a  pamphlet 
in  which  he  had  the  hardihood  to  maintain  that 
Beaumarchais  had  never  been  on  familiar  terms  with 
Paris  Duverney.  The  document,  full  of  contradictions, 
misstatements  and  falsifications,  was  written  in  the 
tone  of  an  exceedingly  arrogant  nobleman  dismissing 
a  fraudulent  and  insolent  valet.  The  Comte  was  well 
known  in  the  province,  whilst  his  adversary  was  a  stranger, 
and  whatever  may  be  said  to  the  contrary,  the  eighteenth 
century  French  commoner  loved  a  lord  as  dearh^  as  the 
average  Englishman  is  reputed  to  do.  The  Comte  de  la 
Blache  used  his  credit,  both  as  a  noble  and  as  a  rich  and 
distinguished  soldier, to  influence  public  opinion  in  his  favour, 
and  tried  to  induce  all  the  barristers  of  the  Proven9al 
Parlement  to  support  his  memoir  with  their  signatures, 

209  14 


Figaro  :   The  Life  of  Beaumarchais 

hoping  by  this  means  to  deprive  his  enemy  of  legal  assist- 
ance. This  design  was  frustrated  by  several  members 
of  the  Bar  refusing  to  participate  in  such  an  irregular 
procedure.  The  Comte,  thereupon,  caused  a  copy  of 
his  memoir  to  be  delivered  at  every  house  in  the  neigh- 
bourhood. By  an  unfortunate  oversight  a  copy  was  handed 
to  Beaumarchais  personally  at  his  attorney's  house,  where 
he  had  taken  up  his  quarters  with  Gudin.  He  was  not 
slow  to  make  use  of  this  blunder,  and  the  ensuing  dialogue 
between  him  and  the  messenger  provided  him  with  a 
sufficiently  comic  opening  for  his  Reponse  Ingenue,  which, 
needless  to  say,  is  not  so  artless  as  its  title  implies.  It 
begins  thus  : 

"  A  breathless  and  heated  colporteur  knocks  at  my 
door,  and  hands  me  a  memoir,  with  these  words  :  '  M.  le 
Comte  de  la  Blache  begs  you,  sir,  to  interest  yourself  in 
his  case.' 

"  '  Do  you  know  who  I  am,  my  good  fellow  ?  ' 

''  '  No,  sir  ;  but  that  doesn't  matter  in  the  least  :  there 
are  three  of  us  running  from  door  to  door,  and  our  instruc- 
tions are  not  to  forget  even  the  convents  and  the  shops.' 

"  '  I  am  not  inquisitive,  my  friend,  thank  you.' 

"  '  Oh  !  sir,  do  take  one  :  I  am  so  loaded  !  There  are 
so  many  people  who  refuse  them  !  ' 

''  '  Very  well,  then  ! — and  here  are  eight  sous  for  your 
trouble  and  your  present.' 

"  '  Faith  !  sir,  it  is  not  worth  it  !  '  He  is  still  on  the 
run,  and  as  for  me,  I  close  my  door." 

In  the  course  of  this  pamphlet  Beaumarchais  does 
not  spare  the  rod,  and  pleasantly  compares  Duverney 
with  the  excellent  Alworthy  in  Tom  Jones,  whilst  the 
Comte,  of  course,  is  cast  for  the  role  of  Blifil.  The  result 
of  this  preliminary  encounter  was  to  turn  public  opinion 
completely  in  his  own  favour. 

Meanwhile,  Beaumarchais,  accompanied  by  the  in- 
separable Gudin,  was  the  life  and  soul  of  every  company 
in  which  he  happened  to  be,  and  conducted  himself  as 
though  he  had  not  a  care  in  the  world.  He  was 
much  run  after  by  women,  and  several  society  ladies 
in  difficulties  of  every  kind  sought  his  advice  and  help. 
Among  these  was  Mme.  de  Saint-Vincent,  a  great  grand- 
daughter of  Mme.   de  Sevigne,   who,  though  a  complete 


Beaumarchais  closes  his  Account 

stranger,  addressed  a  witty  but  brazen  letter  to  him  from 
her  prison  in  the  Conciergerie.  This  was  the  lady  whose 
misconduct  was  then  causing  such  intense  anxiety  to  that 
ancient  reprobate  the  Due  de  Richelieu,  who  accused  her, 
with  good  reason,  of  taking  advantage  of  her  position 
as  his  mistress  to  indulge  in  a  series  of  fraudulent  financial 
transactions,  in  which  she  attempted  to  involve  her 
former  lover.  Fearing  that  the  relations  between  the 
Due  and  Beaumarchais  were  connected  with  her  own  case, 
she  wrote  to  the  famous  pamphleteer,  begging  him  not  to 
join  her  enemies  by  placing  his  dreaded  pen  at  their 
service.  His  reply,  setting  her  mind  at  rest  as  to  his 
intentions,  complimenting  her  on  her  literary  gifts,  but 
plainly  hinting  that  he  was  shocked  by  the  flippancy  of 
her  tone,  so  ill-suited  to  her  deplorable  situation,  deserves 
high  rank  as  an  example  of  epistolary  art.  From  this 
time  also  dated  a  voluminous  correspondence  with  a  girl  of 
seventeen,  who  is  always  discreetly  referred  to  as  "  Ninon." 
She  belonged  to  a  well-known  family  in  Aix.  A  precocious 
and  enthusiastic  study  of  Rousseau  and  too  close  an 
application  of  his  incendiary  sophistries,  whilst  developing 
her  extraordinary  literary  ability,  had  resulted  in  social 
consequences  of  the  most  embarrassing  kind  ;  and  her 
object  in  writing  to  Beaumarchais  was  to  seek  his  assistance 
in  bringing  her  faithless  and  reluctant  lover  to  the  altar. 
Although  the  parties  to  this  amazing  correspondence 
never  met,  Beaumarchais,  in  spite  of  the  urgency  of  his 
business,  found  time  to  reply  to  her  at  regular  intervals, 
never  failing  to  give  her  sound  and  badly  needed  counsel. 

The  Comte  de  la  Blache,  alarmed  at  seeing  his  popu- 
larity on  the  wane,  now  launched  another  memoir,  urging 
that  the  pamphlets  of  his  opponent  should  be  burnt  by  the 
public  executioner,  on  the  grounds  that  they  were  blas- 
phemous and  disrespectful  to  the  King.  The  document 
was  signed  by  six  prominent  lawyers.  Nor  was  this  all  : 
the  exasperated  nobleman  spent  day  after  day  in  inter- 
viewing the  judges,  and,  indeed,  everybody  who  was  likely 
to  have  the  slightest  influence  on  the  public  mind. 

Gudin  says  that  Beaumarchais  ''  thought  it  very 
improper  for  a  litigant  to  visit  the  magistrates  trying  his 
case,  to  slip  prejudices  and  invectives  into  their  ears,  and 
to  tell  them  things  in  secret  which  they  would  not    dare 

211  14* 


Figaro  :   The  Life  of  Beaumarchais 

avow  in  public."  For  his  part  he  refused  to  stoop  to  such 
unscrupulous  courses,  for  he  had  ever}^  confidence,  he 
insisted,  in  the  justice  of  his  cause  and  in  the  uprightness 
of  the  judges  ;  that  his  adversary  had  less  faith  in  their 
integrity  filled  him  with  indignation  :  it  is  always  hard 
to  forgive  others  for  lacking  our  good  qualities.  To  those 
who  urged  him  to  greater  activit}- ,  he  answered  in  the  words 
of  Le  Misanthrope  :  "  Have  I  not  a  good  case  ?  "  How- 
ever, he  lost  little  time  in  bringing  out  his  reply,  which 
in  allusion  to  his  own  isolation  and  the  number  of  lawyers 
arraj^ed  against  him,  he  entitled  Le  Tartar e  a  la  Legion. 
Turning  first  to  the  charges  of  impiety  levelled  against  his 
first  pamphlet,  he  asks  :  "  What  can  there  be  in  common 
between  religion  and  our  lawsuit  ?  What  !  Can  it  not 
be  stated  and  proved  that  the  Comte  de  la  Blache  is  a 
slanderer  without  offending  Heaven  ?  And  if  I  do  not 
succeed  in  proving  it,  what  has  that  got  to  do  with  reli- 
gion ?  If  I  am  wrong,  are  not  the  micans  of  punishing  m.e 
in  the  hands  of  the  magistrates  ?  Is  not  that  sufficient  with- 
out dragging  Heaven  and  earth  into  our  quarrel  ?  "  .  .  . 
"  Even  the  greatest  saints,"  he  continues,  "  never  believed 
that  they  could  be  offending  God  in  their  writings  when 
they  ridiculed  the  Devil  and  those  who  showed  such 
efficiency  in  carrying  out  his  evil  works.  .  .  .  Wlw  all  this 
fuss,  this  clamour,  this  frenzied  running  hither  and 
thither  ?  Why  can  3''ou  not  leave  me  alone  ?  "  he  cries, 
"  and  I  would  not  sa}^  a  word  :  my  emblem  is  a  drum 
which  makes  a  noise  only  when  it  is  beaten." 

Passing  on  to  the  accusation  of  disloyall}^  he  writes: 
"  Because  His  Majesty  has  said  in  a  decree  in  Council  that 
he  would  treat  with  the  utmost  severit}'  of  the  law  those 
who  misused  their  wit  to  defame  persons  with  whom  they 
were  in  controversy,  do  3'ou  really  think,  M.  le  Comte,  the 
King  meant  that  he  would  accord  his  royal  protection  to 
those  who  defamed  their  adversaries  provided  they  did  so 
without  wit  ?  What  a  precious  title  to  protection  and 
favour  3'ou  invoke  !  Because  your  pleadings  are  dull 
and  stupid,  do  3^ou  think  3^ou  have  the  right  to  make  them 
outrageous  and  slanderous  with  impunity  ?  It  is  proved 
up  to  the  hilt  that  they  are  so,  and  people  laugh  at  and 
despise  you  because  of  them  ;  therefore,  you  think  j^ou 
have  the  right  to  invoke  the  royal  authorit}^  to  avenge 

212 


Beaumarchais  closes  his  Account 

this  offence  by  carefully  preserving  your  writings  while 
delivering  mine  to  the  flames  !  " 

This  pamphlet  still  further  increased  the  popularity 
of  Beaumarchais,  and  he  now  suggested  to  the  magistrates 
that  he  and  the  Comte  should  plead  their  cause  personally 
at  one  audience  of  the  Court.  This  w^as  agreed  to,  and 
the  rivals  appeared  in  a  crowded  assembly  and  addressed 
the  magistrates  in  turn.  They  both  made  eloquent 
speeches.  The  Comte  conducted  his  case  with  ability, 
but  he  was  unable  to  efface  the  deep  impression  created 
in  all  minds  by  his  opponent's  statements.  After  fifty- 
nine  sittings,  the  magistrates  decided  unanimously  in 
favour  of  Beaumarchais.  They  ordered  Duverney's  will 
to  be  executed,  and  condemned  the  Comte  to  pay  all  costs 
of  the  lawsuit  and  damages  amounting  to  twelve  thousand 
livres,  whilst  his  pamphlets  w^ere  stigmatized  as  slanderous, 
and  condemned  to  be  suppressed.  The  magistrates  in- 
timated that  they  would  have  allowed  higher  damages  to 
Beaumarchais  had  it  not  been  for  what  they  considered  the 
unseemly  truculence  of  his  pamphlets,  and  on  this  account 
they  ordered  him  to  pay  one  thousand  livres  to  the  poor 
of  the  towm.     He  at  once  paid  into  Court  double  that  sum. 

The  judgment  was  received  with  enthusiasm  by  the 
public,  and  the  hero  was  feted  everywhere.  As  for  the 
Comte,  much  to  the  surprise  of  Beaumarchais,  he  accepted 
the  judgment  like  a  man  and  a  philosopher,  and  presented 
his  successful  rival  with  a  portrait  of  his  grand-uncle 
Duverney,  which  he  knew  Beaumarchais  had  always 
greatly  admired. 

Thus  ended  this  epoch-making  lawsuit,  which  had 
precipitated  an  apparently  all-powerful  Parlement  into 
the  abyss,  shaken  French  society  to  its  foundations, 
awakened  public  opinion  for  the  first  time  to  consciousness 
of  its  strength,  and  fixed  the  attention  of  the  whole  country 
on  the  chief  actor  in  this  astoni-hing  drama.  By  a  mar- 
vellous combination  of  courage  and  dexterity  Beaumarchais 
had  succeeded  in  enlisting  the  tastes,  ideas  and  passions 
of  the  moment  in  his  own  favour.  He  had  overcome  all 
obstacles,  broken  down  all  barriers,  swept  aside  all  rules, 
denied  every  authority,  attacked  all  laws,  and  pushed 
to  the  utmost  limits  that  subversive  critical  spirit  which 
aKvays  marks  the  dawn  of  a  new  era. 


CHAPTER  XXIV 

IN    WHICH    BEAUMARCHAIS    DISCOVERS    AMERICA 

IN  1775  France,  still  smarting  under  the  humiliating 
conditions  of  the  Treaty  of  Versailles,  imposed  upon 
her  twelve  years  before,  watched  with  sympathetic  interest 
the  struggle  of  the  American  Colonies  for  independence  ; 
but  most  people  anticipated  that  the  rebellion  would  be 
easily  suppressed.  The  author  of  The  Barter  of  Seville 
thought  otherwise,  and  we  have  seen  how  closely  he 
studied  the  situation  whenever  the  King's  affairs  took  him 
to  London.  He  can,  indeed,  fairly  claim  to  be  amongst 
the  few  Frenchmen  (if  not  the  first)  to  foresee  the  triumph 
of  the  Colonies.  He  was  not  the  sort  of  person  to  keep 
his  ideas  to  himself,  and  he  never  missed  an  opportunity 
of  insinuating  them  into  any  report  or  statement  which 
he  happened  to  be  supptying  to  the  King  or  his  ministers. 
He  was  more  than  once  snubbed  for  his  pains.  It  is  easy 
to  condemn  them  for  their  lack  of  vision.  Yet  no  man 
welcomes  the  unsolicited  advice  of  an  amateur  in  the 
conduct  of  his  affairs,  and  still  less  when  it  is  proffered  at 
the  point  of  an  epigram. 

But  Beaumarchais  was  not  to  be  turned  aside  by 
rebuffs,  however  well  merited  and  however  crushingly 
administered.  He  was  so  pertinacious  that  King  and 
ministers  at  length  got  so  tired  of  him  that  they  let 
him  have  his  way,  this  seeming  to  be  the  only  means  of 
keeping  him  quiet.  It  was  decided  to  send  a  confidential 
agent  to  England  to  report  directly  to  the  King  on  the 
situation,  and  Beaumarchais  had  little  difficulty  in  con- 
vincing the  Government  that  they  could  not  possibly  find 
a  person  better  suited  to  the  post  than  himself,  especially 
as,  since  his  sojourn  in  Spain,  he  was  on  intimate  terms 
with  Lord  Rochford*  (now  Secretary  of  State  for  the 
southern  department)  ;    he  added  that  this  nobleman  was 

•  Rochford  was  one  of  the  few  persons  mentioned  with  approval  in  the 
Letters  oj  Junius. 

214 


In  which  Beaumarchais  discovers  America 

an  expansive  person  and  that  he  had  the  art  of  making 
him  talk.  It  will  also  be  remembered  that  Beaumarchais 
was  the  friend  of  Wilkes  and  was  well  known  in  Opposition 
circles.  As  it  happened,  the  chief  objection  to  his  selection 
for  this  post  was  the  notoriety  which  pleased  him  so  much, 
for  immediately  he  landed,  and  unknown  to  himself,  a 
watchful  eye  was  kept  on  all  his  movements,  as  is  evident 
from  two  letters,  among  the  Abergavenny  MSS.,  from  Sir 
S.  Porten  to  John  Robinson,  of  a  rather  later  date. 

**  The  noted  Beaumarchais,"  says  the  first  of  these 
documents,  ''  is  now  in  London.  I  could  easily  find  him 
out,  if  it  were  thought  expedient  to  do  anything  with 
him.     Private.     Read  by  the  King." 

The  second  is  even  more  explicit,  and  is  dated  two 
days  later  : 

"  Beaumarchais  goes  by  the  name  of  M.  Laval.  His 
avowed  business  is  to  treat  with  the  noted  Morande,  and 
prevent  the  publication  of  some  work  ;  but  it  is  said  that 
he  has  been  in  the  City  to  deal  in  the  stocks.  I  have  set 
two  men  to  watch  him.  His  changing  his  name  here 
seems  a  matter  sufficient  to  detain  him  as  a  spy  and  im- 
postor. The  French  are  doing  all  they  can  to  work  up 
the  Dutch,  Danes  and  Swedes,  to  maintain  the  honour  of 
their  flags." 

So  much  for  the  boasted  secrecy  of  his  movements. 

On  the  pretext,  then,  of  bringing  the  transactions  with 
the  Chevalier  d'Eon  to  a  conclusion,  Beaumarchais  was 
again  in  England,  accepting  the  lavish  hospitality  of  his 
friends  and  doing  his  utmost  to  confound  their  politics. 
He  was  not  the  father  of  Figaro  for  nothing.  Early  in 
September  we  find  him  addressing  to  the  King  a  detailed 
and  perspicacious  confidential  report  on  the  progress  of  the 
quarrel  between  the  Colonists  and  the  Metropolis,  in  which 
he  affirmed  with  confidence  the  complete  victory  of  the 
Americans  in  the  near  future,  but  only  on  condition  that 
they  received  secret  help  from  France.  He  employed  all 
his  adroitness  and  dialectical  skill  in  urging  Louis  to  adopt 
his  plan,  for,  as  he  pointed  out,  if  the  insurgents  were 
defeated,  their  resentment  against  His  Majesty's  Govern- 
ment would  be  such  that  they  would  certainly  unite  with 
the  English  and  turn  against  the  French,  who  were  unpre- 
pared for  war.     In  such  an  event  the  French  sugar  islands 

215 


Figaro  :    The  Life  of  Beaumarchais 

would  fall  an  easy  prey  to  the  new  combination.  He 
implored  the  King  to  seize  every  opportunit}^  of  prolonging 
the  struggle,  and  his  project  of  giving  the  rebels  secret 
help  was  a  perfectly  safe  way  of  achieving  this  end. 

His  first  memoir  being  ignored,  he  submitted  a  second 
and  more  urgent  report  a  lew  weeks  later,  and  at  last 
the  prudence  and  circumspection  of  M.  de  Vergennes  and 
the  timidity  of  Louis  gave  way  before  the  persistent  and 
insinuating  advances  of  their  irrepressible  agent.  The 
King  secretly  authorized  Beaumarchais  to  draw  arm.s 
and  munitions  from  the  State  arsenals,  on  condition  that 
he  afterwards  replaced  them,  and  that  he  undertook  all 
risks  of  transport  across  the  Atlantic.  He  was  to  provide 
ships  and  men,  and  was  to  reimburse  himself  b}/  shipping 
cargoes  of  tobacco,  rice  and  indigo,  which  the  Americans 
would  supply  in  exchange  for  the  munitions  and  equip micnt. 

In  June,  1776,  the  King  advanced  to  him  one  milhon 
livres,  for  which  Beaumarchais  gave  a  receipt,  dated  the 
loth  ol  that  month,  and  in  August  the  Spanish  Govern- 
ment was  induced  to  associate  itself  with  the  enterprise 
by  transmitting  a  similar  amount  to  the  newly  appointed 
hidden  intermediary.  Beaumarchais  at  once  augmented 
these  funds  from  his  private  resources,  and  with  a  few  rich 
partners  founded  an  enormous  trading  com.pan}^  Rodrigue 
Hortales  and  Co.,  to  carry  out  this  half-political  and  half- 
commercial  undertaking.  The  conditions  governing  these 
transactions  were  agreed  upon  between  Beaumarchais 
and  Silas  Deane,  who  had  been  sent  to  Paris  by  Congress 
with  full  power  to  procure  the  desperately  needed  help. 

As  so  often  happened,  even  in  the  most  serious  under- 
takings of  Beaumarchais,  a  comic  interlude  enlivened  the 
preparations  for  his  first  convoy.  An  old  doctor  named 
Dubourg,  one  of  Franklin's  closest  European  friends  and 
an  enthusiastic  supporter  of  the  American  cause,  had  for 
long  meditated  a  similar  project  to  that  of  Beaumarchais, 
and  had  already  approached  M.  de  Vergennes  on  the 
matter.  Upon  hearing  that  he  had  been  supplanted  by 
the  author  of  The  Barber  of  Seville,  he  wrote  to  the  Foreign 
Minister  to  the  following  effect  : 

"  MoNSEiGNEUR, — I  saw  M.  dc  Beaumarchais  this 
morning  and  willingly  conferred  with  him.     Everybody  is 

216 


In  which  Beaumarchais  discovers  America 

acquainted  with  his  wit,  and  nobody  appreciates  more 
than  I  do  his  integrity,  discretion  and  zeal  for  all  that  is 
noble  and  of  good  report.  I  beheve  him  to  be  one  of  the 
men  best  fitted  for  political  negotiations,  but  at  the  same 
time  among  the  least  suited  for  commercial  transactions. 
He  loves  display  ;  I  am  informed  that  he  keeps  women  ; 
he  is  said  to  be  a  regular  spendthrift,  and  there  is  not  a 
merchant  or  manufacturer  in  France  but  regards  him  as 
such  and  would  hesitate  to  do  business  with  him.  I  must 
say  that  he  astonished  me  very  much  when  he  told  me 
that  you  had  charged  him,  not  only  to  aid  us  with  his 
counsels,  but  had  committed  into  his  hands  alone  the 
details  of  all  commercial  operations,  consignments,  muni- 
tions of  war,  and  the  ordinary  trading  bet^^  een  France  and 
the  united  Colonies,  and  between  the  former  and  her  own 
Colonies,  the  direction  of  all  business,  the  fixing  of  prices, 
the  making  and  carrying  out  of  contracts,  etc.,  etc.  I 
agreed  with  him  that  this  arrangement  might  possibly 
result  in  greater  secrecy,  but  I  urged  that  the  taking  over 
of  ever\^  branch  of  this  immense  traffic,  to  the  absolute 
exclusion  of  everybody  else,  was  grossly  unfair  to  those 
who  had  put  themselves  to  great  expense  and  for  over 
a  year  had  tired  themselves  out  and  encountered  great 
dangers  and  difficulties  in  the  service  of  Congress. 
He  thereupon  exerted  his  eloquence  to  prove  to  m.e,  by 
hook  or  by  crook,  that  the  arrangement  made  with  him 
would  not  interfere  in  any  way  with  the  transactions  of 
others.  I  admit  that  all  personal  considerations  should 
give  way  before  the  urgent  need  for  secrecy  in  the  present 
critical  conjuncture  ;  but  I  may  be  allowed  to  doubt  if 
there  are  not  other  and  perhaps  better  means  of  ensuring 
this  necessary  end.  There  are  perhaps  a  hundred,  perhaps 
a  thousand  persons  in  France  w^ho,  although  their' talents 
may  be  very  inferior  to  those  of  M.  de  Beaumarchais, 
could  better  carry  out  your  wishes  by  inspiring  more 
confidence  in  those  with  whom  they  wotild  have  to  deal." 

Who  shall  say  that  the  doctor  was  wrong  in  his  deduc- 
tions ?  Is  it  so  unreasonable  to  maintain  "that  the  man 
who  breaks  faith  in  one  human  relationship  cannot  be 
imphcitly  trusted  to  observe  the  moral  code  of  another  ? 
Can  we  safely  assume  that  he  who  is  capable  of  running 

217 


Figaro  :   The  Life  of  Beaumarchais 

away    with  another  man's  wife  will  be  more  scrupulous 
about  making  off  with  his  money,  if  tempted  to  do  so  ? 

The  grave  M.  de  Vergennes  was  so  much  amused  by 
Dubourg's  letter  that  he  showed  it  to  Beaumarchais,  not 
forgetting,  we  may  be  sure,  to  rally  him  on  the  matter 
of  keeping  women.  Beaumarchais  answered  the  doctor, 
forwarding  a  copy  of  his  letter  to  the  minister  for  his 
entertainment  : 

"  This  Tuesday,  i6th  July,  1776. 

"  Until  M.  de  Vergennes  showed  me  your  letter.  Sir, 
it  was  impossible  for  me  to  grasp  the  exact  meaning  of  the 
communication  with  which  you  honoured  me.  .  .  .  What 
does  it  matter  to  our  business  whether  I  am  an  ostenta- 
tious fellow,  with  many  irons  in  the  fire,  and  even  whether 
*  I  keep  women  '  or  not  ?  The  women  I  have  kept  for  the 
past  twenty  years,  Sir,  are  your  very  humble  servants. 
There  were  five  of  them,  four  sisters  and  a  niece.  Three 
years  ago,  to  my  great  grief,  two  of  these  kept  women  d'ed. 
I  now  keep  only  three — two  sisters  and  a  niece — which 
is  certainly  rather  ostentatious  for  a  man  in  my  position. 
But  what  would  you  have  thought  if,  knowing  me  better, 
you  had  been  aware  of  the  fact  that  I  had  pushed  the 
scandal  so  far  as  to  keep  men  as  well — two  very  young 
and  quite  good-looking  nephews,  and  even  the  unlucky 
father  who  brought  into  the  world  such  a  scandalous 
keeper  ?  As  to  my  ostentation,  that  is  worse  still.  Three 
years  ago,  thinking  that  laced  and  embroidered  clothes 
were  too  shabby  to  suit  my  vanity,  have  I  not  had  my 
sleeves  ornamented  with  the  finest  plain  muslin  ?  The 
finest  broadcloth  is  not  too  fine  for  me  ;  sometimes  even, 
when  it  was  very  hot,  I  have  been  known  to  push  my 
snobbery  to  the  point  of  wearing  silk  ;  but  I  beg  of  you, 
Sir,  not  to  write  about  these  things  to  M.  de  Vergennes, 
or  you  will  entirely  ruin  me  in  his  estimation. 

"  You  have,  doubtless,  had  your  reasons  for  writing 
ill  of  me,  whom  you  do  not  know,  and  I  have  mine  for  not 
being  offended  with  you  for  doing  so,  although  I  have  the 
honour  of  knowing  you.  You  are.  Sir,  an  estimable  man, 
so  inflamed  with  the  desire  of  accomplishing  a  good  work 
that  you  thought  you  could  permit  yourself  to  do  a  little 
ill  in  order  to  procure  an  opportunity  of  doing  it. 

218 


In  which  Beaumarchais  discovers  America 

"  This  is  not  quite  the  morahty  of  the  Gospel,  but 
I  have  seen  many  people  adopt  it.  It  was  in  this  same 
sense  that  the  Fathers  of  the  Church,  in  order  to  convert 
the  heathen,  sometimes  allowed  themselves  to  make 
hazardous  citations,  and  to  circulate  holy  slanders,  which 
they  named  among  themselves  pious  frauds.  Let  us 
cease  jesting.  I  am  not  angered,  for  M.  de  Vergennes  is 
not  a  small-minded  man,  and  I  am  content  to  abide  by 
his  decision.  If  those  of  whom  I  ask  advances  in  business 
mistrust  me,  it  cannot  be  helped ;  but  let  those  who 
are  animated  by  a  genuine  zeal  for  the  cause  of  our  common 
friends  think  twice  before  they  estrange  an  honourable 
man,  who  offers  to  render  every  possible  assistance  and 
to  make  all  kinds  of  advances  to  these  same  friends. 
Now  do  you  understand  me,  Sir  ? 

"  I  will  do  myself  the  honour  of  calling  upon  you  this 
afternoon  before  the  close  of  your  meeting.  I  have  also 
the  honour  of  being.  Sir,  your  most  humble  and  most 
obedient  Servant,  well  known  under  the  name  of  Rodrigue 
Hortales  and  Co." 

The  worthy  doctor  never  quite  forgave  Beaumarchais, 
especially  as  disaster  speedily  overtook  the  single  small 
ship  which  he  succeeded  in  equipping  and  dispatching  to 
America  with  a  cargo  of  munitions,  with  a  view  of  securing 
a  load  of  merchandise  in  exchange.  Within  a  few  days  of 
leaving  port,  the  vessel  had  the  ill-luck  to  sail  into  the 
midst  of  the  English  Fleet,  and  was  promptly  seized 
and  confiscated  as  contraband. 

Meanwhile  the  enthusiasm  and  ability  of  Beaumarchais 
overcame  all  obstacles,  and  in  a  surprisingly  short  time  he 
was  able  to  deliver  to  the  insurgents  200  guns  with  a 
sufficiency  of  projectiles,  25,000  muskets,  and  the  entire 
equipment  for  25,000  troops.  These  supplies  arrived  just 
in  time,  and,  indeed,  made  possible  the  campaign  of  1777. 
A  dense  crowd  of  people  assembled  on  the  shores  of  Ports- 
mouth Roads  to  welcome  the  flotilla  of  Beaumarchais, 
consisting  of  the  Amphitrite  and  two  smaller  ships,  the 
hard-pressed  Colonists  shouting  and  clapping  their  hands 
with  joy  at  this  unexpected  and  timely  aid. 

In  rendering  such  signal  service  to  the  cause  of  the 
new  Republic,   however,   Beaumarchais  had  strained  his 

219 


Figaro  :    The  Life  of  Beaumarchais 

credit  to  the  utmost,  and  he  naturalty  counted  upon  the 
insurgents  promptly  fulfilling  their  obligations  to  him, 
as  their  agent  had  promised.  But  having  for  the  present 
secured  what  they  wanted,  they  suddenly  discovered 
that  they  had  no  confidence  in  Beaumarchais,  and  pro- 
fessed to  see  in  him  merely  the  secret  intermediary  of  the 
French  monarch  for  transmitting  to  them  the  munitions 
as  a  free  gift.  They  refused  to  believe  his  state- 
ment that  his  entire  private  fortune  was  involved  in 
making  this  decisive  contribution  to  the  success  of  their 
armies  in  the  field.  In  this  view  thej^  were  confirmed 
by  the  ambitious  and  disappointed  Arthur  Lee,  who  did 
his  best  to  obscure  the  issue  out  of  resentment  against 
Silas  Deane,  who,  he  considered,  had  usurped  his  position 
as  principal  agent  in  this  matter.  He  knew  it  was  charac- 
teristic of  Beaumarchais  always  to  keep  a  watchful  eve  on 
his  own  interests  whilst  working  for  the  good  of  others, 
and  he  found  it  an  eas}/  task  to  foster  in  the  American 
leaders  doubis  of  the  justice  of  the  Frenchman's  claims, 
especially  as  it  was  then  impossible  for  M.  de  Vergennes 
to  support  them.  Beaumarchais  undoubtedly  owed  this 
unpleasantness  to  his  unfortunate  reputation  as  an 
intriguer,  for  the  past  is  always  the  most  living  thing  in 
the  present.  But,  however  this  may  be,  it  is  impossible  to 
exonerate  the  Americans  from  the  charges  of  ingratitude 
which  he  brought  against  them.  It  ma}^  be  rem^arked, 
in  passing,  that  Dubourg's  letter,  above  quoted,  furnishes 
a  strong  presumpcion  against  the  justice  of  the  American 
attitude,  whilst  it  also  reflects  fairly  accurately  the  mis- 
giving with  which  m.am^  business  micn  regarded  this 
irruption  of  Beaumarchais  into  international  commerce. 

In  spite  of  his  urgent  representations  that  unless  they 
fulfilled  their  engagements  wiihout  delay  he  and  his  asso- 
ciates would  be  ruined,  the  insurgents  for  long  refused 
to  send  anything  in  exchange,  and  when  at  last  a  cargo 
of  merchandise  did  reach  France,  it  was  held  up  by 
Lee  and  Franklin  on  the  grounds  that  it  did  not  belong 
to  Beaumarchais.  The  American  sage  profoundly  dis- 
trusted ihe  free  and  easj^  Frenchman  :  his  gaiety  shocked 
his  austerity.  Some  people  are  so  constituted  that  their 
consciences  are  a  nuisance  to  themiselves  and  to  everybody 
around  them.     Frankhn  was  one  of  these,  and  his  reports 


In  which  Beaumarchais  discovers  America 

on  Beaumarchais  to  Congress  were  partly  responsible  for 
the  Americans'  excessive  caution.  It  was  only  with  great 
difficulty  that  the  republican  agents  could  be  induced  to 
hand  over  the  cargo.  As  a  consequence  of  these  tardy 
and  inadequate  returns,  Beaumarchais  was,  in  July,  1777, 
compelled  to  report  to  his  partners  a  deficit  of  over  three 
million  livres,  and  it  was  only  a  further  advance  of  one 
and  three-quarter  millions  by  M.  de  Vergennes  which 
saved  the  company  from  collapse. 

The  zeal  of  Beaumarchais,  however,  was  proof  against 
the  ungracious  conduct  of  the  Colonists  and  the  thousand 
and  one  difficulties  which  beset  him.  On  the  contrary, 
when  he  heard  that  the  Baron  de  Steuben,  one  of  the 
officers  he  had  sent  across  the  Atlantic,  had  distinguished 
himself,  and  been  appointed  Inspector-General  of  the 
insurgent  troops,  he  wrote  to  his  New  York  agent 
Theveneau  de  Francy  (younger  brother  of  Morande)  : 

''  Bravo  !  Tell  him  I  regard  the  glory  he  has  won  as 
the  interest  on  my  money,  and  I  have  no  doubi  that  on 
this  score  he  will  bring  me  heavy  returns." 

Again  later,  when  Francy  reported  to  him  that  he  had 
granted  a  heavy  loan  to  Lafayette  when  in  difficulties  with 
the  money-lenders,  he  warmly  approved  his  action  with 
the  remark  : 

''  What  a  fine  young  fellow  he  is  !  It  is  a  privilege  to 
be  able  to  oblige  such  an  officer."  All  of  which  goes  to 
show  that  in  his  American  enterprise  he  was  not  actuated 
so  entirely  by  motives  of  self-interest  as  many  would  have 
us  suppose. 

Six  months  later,  when  the  prospects  of  the  House  of 
Hortales  had  brightened,  Beaumarchais  purchased  from 
the  State  an  old  warship  called  the  Hippopotame,  and  after 
rechristening  it  the  Fier  Rodrigue,  refitted  it  from  stem 
to  stern,  armed  it  with  sixty-six  guns  and  thirty-three 
smaller  pieces,  loaded  it  with  a  cargo  of  military  equip- 
ments, and  placing  it  under  the  command  of  a  distin- 
guished officer,  M.  de  Montaut,  prepared  to  launch  it 
towards  America.  All  was  ready,  and  the  ship  was  on  the 
point  of  sailing,  when  an  urgent  message  came  through 

221 


Figaro  :   The  Life  of  Beaumarchais 

M.  de  Maurepas  from  the  King,  nervous  at  the  threatening 
attitude  of  the  Enghsh,  expressly  forbidding  the  dehvery 
of  the  cargo  of  the  Fier  Rodrigue  and  those  of  its  convoys 
to  the  Americans.  Beaumarchais  readily  promised  to 
abide  by  the  royal  decision.  He  assured  the  anxious 
minister  that  his  vessel  was  not  bound  for  New  York,  but 
to  the  French  Colony  of  St.  Domingo,  with  a  detachment 
of  seven  or  eight  hundred  recruits  for  the  Militia.  He 
quite  understood  how  necessary  it  was  to  allay  the 
suspicions  of  the  English.  If  M.  de  Maurepas  would 
leave  it  to  him,  he  would  see  that  nothing  went  wrong, 
and  that  the  English  were  duly  hoodwinked.  He  would 
arrange  for  Congress  to  send  two  privateers  to  seize  the 
Fier  Rodrigue  when  off  the  island.  The  captain  would 
protest  against  the  capture,  and  after  a  convenient  delay, 
Congress  would  release  the  ship,  with  apologies  for  an 
unfortunate  error  of  judgment.  Meanwhile  it  would  have 
discharged  its  cargo  and  loaded  another  of  tobacco  in 
exchange.  '*  In  this  way,"  explained  Beaumarchais, 
"  M.  de  Maurepas  would  be  relieved  of  his  promise  to  those 
to  whom  he  had  made  it,  and  I  should  be  released  from 
mine  to  him."  Figaro  himself  would  not  have  reasoned 
otherwise. 

Louis,  face  to  face  once  more  with  the  daring  and 
obstinacy  of  Beaumarchais,  who  had  succeeded  in  gal- 
vanizing de  Vergennes  and  de  Sartine  into  activity,  at  last 
gave  way,  as  he  had  so  often  done  before,  and  on  the  13th 
March,  1778,  he  notified  the  English  Government  that  he 
had  decided  to  recognize  the  United  States,  which,  of 
course,  was  equivalent  to  a  declaration  of  war. 

The  embargo  on  the  sailing  of  the  Fier  Rodrigue  was 
now  removed,  and  the  vessel  at  once  set  out  with  a  convoy 
of  ten  ships  belonging  to  the  fleet  of  Beaumarchais.  When 
off  the  coast  of  Grenada  the  flotiUa  was  sighted  and  sum- 
moned to  heave  to  by  the  French  fleet,  under  the  com- 
mand of  the  Comte  d'Estaing,  who  was  about  to  join 
battle  with  the  English  under  Admiral  John  Byron,  the 
grandfather  of  the  poet  and  the  companion  of  Anson  in 
his  voyage  round  the  world.  The  Fier  Rodrigue  was 
ordered  to  take  up  a  position  in  the  line,  and  the  warship 
of  Beaumarchais  bore  a  gallant  part  in  the  ensuing  French 
success.     But   its   captain   was   killed,   its   masts   broken, 

222 


In  which  Beaumarchais  discovers  America 

its  hull  riddled  with  shot,  and  the  ten  convoys,  which  it 
had  been  compelled  to  abandon  to  their  fate,  were  either 
taken  or  lost. 

But  the  renown  that  his  ship  had  won  consoled  Beau- 
marchais in  some  measure  for  this  Pyrrhic  victory,  and  he 
was  immensely  gratified  by  d'Estaing's  neatly  turned 
letter  of  thanks  for  his  services.  His  vanity  was  still 
more  flattered  when  the  King  bestowed  upon  him  a  con- 
gratulatory smile  on  a  lively  song,  "  Quand  Biron  veut 
danser,"  which  he  had  written  to  celebrate  the  occasion. 
After  some  delay  the  Government  indemnified  him  for 
the  losses  he  had  incurred,  which  were  estimated  at 
two  million  livres,  of  which  amount  he  now  drew  four 
hundred  thousand  livres — the  last  instalment  being  paid 
to  him  six  years  later,  in  1785,  just  in  time  to  save  him 
from  bankruptcy. 

Beaumarchais  was  not  a  philanthropist.  He  had 
taken  up  this  colossal  enterprise  because  he  thought  he 
could  make  money  over  it,  and  when  his  hope  was  not 
realized  and  creditors  began  to  worry  him,  he  pressed 
his  claim  on  Congress  with  increasing  vigour,  M.  de  Ver- 
gennes  supporting  him  by  declaring  "  that  the  King  had 
not  supplied  them  with  anything,  but  had  simply  permitted 
M.  de  Beaumarchais  to  draw  supplies  from  his  arsenals 
on  condition  that  he  replaced,  within  a  reasonable  time, 
everything  that  he  took."  For  the  elucidation  of  this 
part  of  the  American  negotiations,  M.  Jules  Marsan's 
book  Beaumarchais  et  les  affaires  d'Amerique  :  Lettres 
inedites,  is  of  considerable  importance.  Eight  months 
after  the  declaration  of  M.  de  Vergennes,  on  the  ist  January, 
1779,  Congress  directed  the  following  letter  to  be  sent 
to  their  chief  French  champion  : 

"  Sir, 

"  The  Congress  of  the  United  States  of  America, 
sensible  of  your  exertions  in  their  favour,  present  you 
with  their  thanks  and  assure  you  of  their  regard. 

"  They  lament  the  inconvenience  you  have  suffered 
by  the  great  advances  made  in  support  of  these  States. 
Circumstances  have  prevented  the  comphance  with  their 
wishes,  but  they  will  take  the  most  effectual  measures  in 
their  power  to  discharge  the  debt  due  to  you. 

223 


Figaro  :    The  Life  of  Beaumarchais 

"  The  liberal  sentiments  and  broad  views  which  alone 
could  dictate  a  conduct  Hke  yours  are  conspicuous  in  both 
your  actions  and  your  character.  While  with  great  talents 
you  serve  your  Prince,  you  have  gained  the  esteem  of  this 
infant  Republic,  and  will  receive  the  united  applause  of  the 
New  World. 

"  By  order  of  Congress." 


"  Their  united  applause  "  was,  in  fact,  the  only  thing 
he  ever  did  get  from  them. 

After  another  wearisome  interval  of  silence  Congress 
dispatched  letters  of  credit  for  2,544,000  hvres,  but  payable 
in  three  years'  time,  and  destined  for  the  Hquidation  of  the 
current  account.  The  most  important  letter  amongst 
those  published  by  M.  Marsan  is  one  which  Beaumarchais 
wrote  to  damp  the  enthusiastic  congratulations  of  Francy 
when  forwarding  these  documents,  pointing  out  to  him 
that  a  delay  of  three  years  rendered  these  letters  of  credit 
unnegotiable  in  Europe,  and  that,  with  such  a  reservation 
they  were  worth  the  paper  they  were  written  on  and  no 
more.  This  last  evasion  really  annoyed  him,  and  he 
wrote  to  the  President  of  the  new  Republic  :  "A  people 
which  has  become  sovereign  and  powerful  may  perhaps 
look  upon  gratitude  as  a  private  virtue  beneath  the  dignity 
of  politics,  but  nothing  excuses  a  State  from  being  just 
and,  above  all,  from  paying  its  debts."  But  Congress, 
having  heard  of  the  assistance  that  M.  de  Vergennes  had 
rendered  to  Beaumarchais,  persisted  in  regarding  him 
simply  as  an  intermediary.  They  even  adopted  a  report 
presented  by  Arthur  Lee,  stating  that,  so  far  from  Beau- 
marchais being  the  creditor  of  the  Assembly  for  3,600,000 
livres,  as  he  claimed,  he  was  in  reahty  its  debtor  to  the 
amount  of  180,000  livres.  Beaumarchais  was  duped.  But 
though  he  now  ceased  to  deal  with  Congress  direct,  he 
continued  to  do  business  with  the  separate  States  of 
Virginia  and  South  Carolina,  and  in  this  trade  realized  a 
very  fair  profit. 

He  was  destined  never  to  see  the  end  of  this  unlucky 
speculation.  It  vexed  and  embittered  the  rest  of  his  hfe, 
and  it  was  not  until  1835,  thirty-six  years  after  his  death, 
that  his  daughter,  Mme.  Delarue,  journeyed  to  Washington, 

224 


In  which  Beaumarchais  discovers  America 

with  her  son,  to  plead  her  cause  in  person.  Congress  at 
last  offered  a  sum  of  800,000  francs  in  full  payment  of  the 
debt,  which  it  had,  in  1779,  estimated  at  2,544,000  livres. 
Weary  of  this  eternal  correspondence,  Mme.  Delarue 
accepted  the  terms  offered. 


225  15 


CHAPTER  XXV 

BEAUMARCHAIS   AND   VOLTAIRE 

OWING  to  the  combined  and  implacable  hostility  of 
the  Church  and  the  Law,  at  least  half  of  the  works 
of  Voltaire  were  prohibited  in  France,  but  their  circulation 
was  not  only  tolerated,  but  often  approved  and  encouraged 
by  those  entrusted  with  State  affairs.  Most  of  the  banned 
volumes  were  readily  procurable,  the  Ministers  occasionally 
salving  their  consciences  by  ordering  an  edition  to  be 
seized  and  burnt  and  its  vendors  imprisoned.  Under 
these  circumstances,  at  the  time  of  the  patriarch's  death 
in  1778,  no  bookseller  had  been  found  willing  to  undertake 
the  grave  personal  and  financial  risk  of  issuing  a  complete 
edition  of  his  works.  A  year  after  the  Master's  death, 
however,  Panckoucke,  the  bookseller,  bought  the  unpub- 
lished MSS.,  with  a  view  of  remedying  this  omission.  But 
his  courage  faihng  him  at  the  last  moment,  he  approached 
Beaumarchais,  suggesting  that  he  should  undertake  the 
perilous  but  honourable  enterprise.  In  spite  of  the 
multiplicity  of  his  engagements,  Beaumarchais  soon  be- 
came fired  with  enthusiasm  for  the  project,  and  sounded 
M.  de  Maurepas  on  the  subject.  The  old  Minister,  a 
thorough-going  Voltairean,  thought  the  scheme  an  admirable 
one  and  promised  to  give  it  his  secret  support. 

With  such  encouragement  in  high  places,  Beaumarchais 
determined  to  proceed  with  the  greatest  publishing  venture 
then  on  record.  His  first  step  was  to  announce  the 
foundation  of  The  Philosophical,  Literary  and  Typographical 
Society  ("  I  am  the  Society,"  he  explained  in  a  confidential 
letter),  and  that  he  himself  had  been  duly  elected  General 
Secretary.  At  a  price  of  160,000  francs  he  acquired 
the  Panckoucke  MSS.  ;  sent  an  agent  to  England  to 
purchase  the  famous  Baskerville  type  for  150,000  livres, 

226 


:^     H  oif  A^37  ^^Tauons  leLaiideau  df'  I'errci 


Voltaire. 

Fyom  a  drawing  by  J.   M.  Moreait  le  jeane,  after  the  statue 
bv  HoudiDi. 


[To  face  p.  226. 


Beaumarchais  and  Voltaire 

and  another  to  Holland  to  study  the  manufacture  of  paper  ; 
bought  three  paper  mills  in  the  Vosges,  and  searched 
every  frontier  for  a  neutral  territory  where  he  could 
safely  establish  an  enormous  printing  works.  After  a 
piquant  correspondence,  too  long  to  quote,  he  leased  for 
this  purpose  from  the  Margrave  of  Baden  a  disused  fort  at 
Kehl,  and  at  once  started  the  work  of  adaptation  and 
equipment  of  the  premises. 

These  preliminary  matters  being  settled,  he  publicly 
announced  to  prospective  purchasers  his  intention  of 
publishing  two  beautiful  editions  of  the  Master's  works, 
including  his  correspondence,  in  seventy  volumes  8vo, 
and  ninety-two  volumes  i2mo,  respectively,  in  an  edition 
of  15,000  copies.  The  work  of  supervising  the  manu- 
facture of  the  paper,  the  printing,  binding  and  distribution 
of  this  vast  publication,  and  of  devising  means  of  smuggHng 
the  sets  wholesale  into  France— with  the  connivance,  it 
is  true,  of  M.  de  Maurepas  and  other  powerful  patrons, 
but  still  subject  to  the  constant  danger  of  confiscation 
and  ruin— sometimes  tried  to  breaking-point  even  the 
dauntless  spirit  of  Beaumarchais.  "  Here  am  I,"  he  cried 
on  one  such  occasion,  "  obliged  to  learn  the  A  B  C  of 
paper-making,  printing  and  bookselling  !  "  But  he  was 
an  apt  pupil :  he  soon  acquired  a  working  technical 
knowledge  of  the  business  in  all  its  branches,  enabhng  him 
to  discuss  every  detail  by  correspondence  with  his  manager 
at  Kehl— and  his  profound  knowledge  of  human  nature 
did  the  rest.  His  works  manager  was  an  able  but  touchy 
and  disagreeable  young  man,  with  rather  extravagant  ideas, 
named  Le  TeUier,  whose  peculiarities  were  a  constant 
source  of  worry  and  trouble  to  his  chief  in  Paris.  On  the 
loth  of  March,  1780,  for  instance,  Beaumarchais  had 
occasion  to  address  him  a  letter  to  this  effect  : 

"  When  I  write  to  you,  my  dear  fellow,  it  is  just  as  if 
I  was  speaking  to  you.  My  style  is  coloured  by  my  feeling, 
and  you  ought  to  answer  me  as  though  we  were  conversing 
together.  It  has  never  been  my  intention  to  reproach 
you  with  neghgence,  but  perhaps  with  trying  to  underta.ke 
too  much.  ...  If  we  do  not  resolutely  reject  all  side 
tracks  we  shall  never  be  ready  in  time.  How,  for  instance, 
do  you  suppose  that  we  can  safely  promise  to  have  an  edition 

227  15* 


Figaro  :   The  Life  of  Beaumarchais 

ready  in  the  early  months  of  1782  when  in  March,  1780, 
we  have  still  to  equip  the  paper  mills,  to  found  the  type, 
set  up  the  presses,  and  engage  the  workmen  ?  A  year 
has  gone  by  and  we  have  hardly  begun. 

"  Your  number  3  sample  of  paper  is  very  poor,  and 
printed  on  such  stuff  it  would  be  an  imposition  to  sell 
the  volumes  at  six  francs  each.  If,  whenever  difficulties 
arise,  you  are  content  to  fall  back  on  the  second  best, 
you  will  find  yourself  offering  to  a  discontented  public 
a  very  inferior  edition,  and  I  confess  that  this  fear  seizes 
me,  even  in  the  midst  of  the  promises  I  am  making  to  every- 
body and  the  hope  which  warmed  my  heart  of  achieving 
a  fine  thing — this  fear  of  the  middhng,  I  say,  empoisons 
my  life.  This  is  a  wretched  paper  for  the  8vo  edition  ; 
on  such  thin,  rough  material  the  characters  will  be  utterly 
wanting  in  grace,  and  the  booksellers,  already  sufficiently 
annoyed  with  us  for  dispensing  with  their  services,  will 
overwhelm  us  wdth  public  sarcasms  and  reproaches.  I 
confess  that  I  should  be  hard  put  to  it  for  a  reply.  I 
cannot  so  easily  be  satisfied  with  the  less  as  soon  as  I  see 
the  difficulty  of  giving  more.  ...  I  cannot  be  a  party 
to  such  a  deception  of  the  public.  After  being  led  into 
this  enterprise  through  my  confidence  in  your  knowledge 
and  ability,  do  not  let  me  break  faith  with  the  public  ; 
if  you  do,  you  will  empoison  my  whole  life,  which  had  no  >- 
need  of  books  to  be  honourable,  and  I  should  be  grieved 
that  the  only  fruit  of  the  friendship  with  which  you  have 
inspired  me  should  turn  to  such  bitterness  for  me.  .  .  . 
Everybody  is  convinced  that  you  cannot  possibly  complete 
the  work  in  less  than  four  years. 

"It  is  bad  to  keep  people  waiting,  but  it  is  a  hundred 
times  worse  to  keep  them  waiting  for  a  middling  article.        j 

"  And  now,  having  stated  all  my  fears,  I  turn  to  en-  ' 
couragement.  Never  be  satisfied  with  mediocrity,  for 
it  is  that  which  everybody  is  on  the  look-out  for.  Do  not 
allow  yourself  to  be  beguiled  b}^  uncertain  little  hopes  : 
take  a  clear  line  in  everything.  In  this  way  you  will  know 
exactly  where  you  are,  for,  I  tell  you  frankly,  I  will  never 
be  a  party  to  mediocrity." 

Le    Tellier's    harsh    and    overbearing    manner    to    his 
subordinates   was   another    perpetual    source   of   trouble, 

228 


Beau  mar  chais  and  Voltaire 

and  workmen  were  constantly  leaving  Kehl  and  returning 
to  Paris  bitterly  complaining  of  his  conduct.  Things 
came  to  such  a  pass  that  on  the  21st  March,  1781, 
Beaumarchais  was  constrained  to  address  him  a  letter 
which  does  infinite  credit  to  his  patience,  amiabihty  and 
understanding  : 

"  The  people  of  Kehl/'  he  wrote,  "  seem  to  me  to  be 
very  incensed  against  you.  This  is  often  enough  to  ruin 
the  most  promising  undertaking.  I  have  no  doubt  that 
you  are  always  strictly  in  the  right,  but  in  my  opinion 
your  rough  tongue  and  unbending  attitude  often  estrange 
from  you  those  whom  a  little  more  kindness  would  con- 
ciliate. However  much  I  prize  your  zeal  and  your  talents, 
it  seems  to  me  that  you  often  fail  in  the  art  of  keeping 
your  assistants,  and,  since  you  cannot  do  everything 
yourself,  this  is  a  grave  matter.  Do  you  know  that  I  have 
not  received  a  single  letter,  since  you  took  over  the  Vol- 
taire, which  does  not  contain  some  complaint  against 
you,  whether  the  communication  comes  from  Paris, 
London,  Deux-Ponts  or  Kehl !  In  fact,  I  am  being 
attacked  from  every  quarter.  It  is  impossible  not  to 
conclude  that,  with  the  best  intention  in  the  world,  you 
are  alienating  everybody  by  your  curt,  disdainful  bearing, 
which  is  offensive  to  ordinary  people,  who  always  judge 
a  man  by  the  side  he  turns  to  them.  You  will  tell  me 
that  it  is  not  your  fault  if  you  have  such  incompetent 
assistants  ;  but  I  reply  that,  taken  in  the  mass,  men  are 
the  same  everywhere  ;  that  everywhere  businesses  are 
being  conducted  with  assistants  no  better  and  no  worse 
than  those  you  employ  ;  and  that,  generally  speaking, 
all  the  complaints  made  against  you  are  on  account  of  your 
air  of  disdainful  superiority,  which  puts  everybody's 
back  up.  It  was  unbending  haughtiness  of  this  kind  which 
has  just  brought  about  the  downfall  of  M.  Necker.  A 
man  may  have  the  very  greatest  talents,  but  directly  he 
attempts  to  sell  his  superiority  to  his  subordinates  at  too 
dear  a  price,  he  will  make  them  all  his  enemies,  and  every- 
thing will  go  to  the  devil,  without  its  being  anybody's 
fault.  .  .  .  What  I  would  have  you  conclude  from  this 
is  that  moderate,  circumspect,  and  always  careful  of  the 
susceptibilities  of  others,  I  may  at  least  serve  you  as  an 

32q 


Figaro  :    The  Life  of  Beaumarchais 

example  of  how  to  deal  with  men,  and  it  would  be  desirable 
that  everybody  could  say  of  you  what  I  am  determined 
you  will  alw^ays  be  able  to  say  of  your  servant  and  friend, 

"  Caron  de  Beaumarchais." 

It  took  Beaumarchais  three  years  to  get  this  under- 
taking into  full  w^orking  order.  Apart  from  the  tribulations 
described  above,  there  were  endless  editorial  difficulties  to 
be  surmounted.  When  the  ten  volumes  containing  the 
Master's  correspondence,  for  instance,  were  all  printed  and 
bound,  Catherine  the  Great  of  Russia  made  energetic 
representations  to  the  French  Government  to  compel 
Beaumarchais  to  suppress  certain  of  her  letters,  with  the 
result  that  Beaumarchais  was  ordered  to  send  her  proofs 
and  cancel  every  sheet  which  failed  to  meet  with  her 
approval.  All  such  sections  of  the  work  had  to  be  reprinted 
and  the  volumes  rebound.  The  Empress  repeatedly 
promised  to  indemnify  him  for  the  great  loss  incurred, 
but  Beaumarchais  never  succeeded  in  inducing  her  to  keep 
her  word. 

The  work  of  collation  of  the  MSS.,  annotation,  com- 
mentary and  revision  was  entrusted  to  Condorcet.  Beau- 
marchais himself  retired  modestly  into  the  background, 
and  notes  from  his  pen  are  few,  but  full  of  piquancy. 
Such  was  the  comment  on  Voltaire's  letter  to  M.  d'Argental, 
at  the  time  of  the  Goezman  lawsuit  : 

"  A  hasty,  ardent  and  excitable  man  like  Beau- 
marchais," wrote  the  philosopher,  "  might  box  his  wife's 
ears,  or  even  box  the  ears  of  his  two  wives,  but  he  does 
not  poison  them." 

To  which  the  General  Secretary  appends  the  note  : 

"  I  certify  that  this  Beaumarchais,  hke  most  men 
who  have  loved  them  much,  has  sometimes  had  his  ears 
boxed  by  a  woman,  but  has  never  been  guilty  of  the 
ignominy  of  raising  his  hand  against  any  one  of  them." 

It  was  in  1783  that  the  first  volumes  began  to  appear, 
and  the  publication  was  not  completed  till  seven  years  later. 
Beaumarchais  baited  his  hook  with  a  lottery  for  200,000 
francs,  open  to  the  first  four  thousand  subscribers,  and 
although  he  secured  only  two  thousand  subscriptions, 
the  drawing  took  place  in  due  course.     In  a  letter,  dated 

230 


From  a  Ulhogtaph  by  Delpech,  ajler  %  drawing  by  Hesse. 

[To  face  p.  230. 


Beaumarchais  and  Voltaire 

the  1st  September,  1790,  thanking  M.  d'Ogny,  Postmaster 
General,  for  his  continual  good  offices,  Beaumarchais 
confesses  to  a  loss  of  over  a  million  livres  in  capital  and 
interest,  but  consoles  himself  with  the  thought  that  he 
has  more  than  kept  faith  with  the  public,  and  has  been 
the  means  of  providing  Europe  with  a  not  unworthy 
edition  of  the  Master's  works. 

One  gratifying  result  of  this  undertaking  was  the 
renewal  of  the  publisher's  long-standing  friendship  with 
Dumouriez.  At  the  time  of  the  Chaulnes  affair  the  future 
Commander-in-Chief  had  severely  condemned  his  friend's 
conduct  in  not  calling  his  adversary  out.  He  was  not  then 
aware  of  his  imprisonment,  and  his  trenchant  and  ill- 
informed  criticism  had  led  to  their  estrangement.  But 
Dumouriez,  who  was  an  affable  person,  had  long  seen  that 
his  impetuosity  had  betrayed  him  into  doing  his  friend  an 
injustice,  and  in  subscribing  for  the  edition  of  Voltaire, 
wrote  to  Beaumarchais,  handsomely  acknowledging  his 
offence,  and  begging  him  to  overlook  the  error  of  judgment 
which  had  led  to  his  very  natural  resentment. 

Needless  to  say,  Beaumarchais  was  delighted  to  welcome 
his  old  friend  back,  and  they  became  more  intimate  than 
ever. 

This  record  of  blind  confidence,  prodigality  and 
ruinous  miscalculation  shows  that  Beaumarchais  was  a 
hardy  speculator,  but  does  little  to  establish  his  claim  to 
any  great  business  capacity  ;  and  it  may  well  be  that  such 
considerations  furnish  the  most  satisfactory  explanation 
of  the  extreme  wariness  of  the  Americans  in  dealing  with 
him. 


231 


CHAPTER  XXVI 

ABOUT    "THE    MARRIAGE   OF   FIGARO  " 

THE  attitude  of  an  artist  towards  his  work  ts  that  of  a 
fond  mother  towards  her  nurshng.  No  sacrifice 
on  behalf  of  the  beloved  is  too  great  :  he  has  often  been 
known  to  give  his  blood,  his  health  and  all  that  he  has  to 
bring  the  child  of  his  imagination  to  light.  Like  a  mother, 
he  loves  to  tend  his  darling  night  and  day  :  to  dress  and 
undress  it  ;  he  is  never  happy  out  of  its  sight  ;  he  bores 
his  friends  by  retaihng  its  merits,  and,  in  his  heart,  resents 
criticisms,  however  tactfully  offered.  He  is  ever  ready  to 
engage  in  acrimonious  quarrels  on  its  behalf ;  and  all 
for  the  sake  of  a  little  thing  which  the  world  will  perhaps 
pass  over  in  silence,  or  with  the  cold  phrases  of  conventional 
commendation.     An  odd  creature,  truly ! 

Of  The  Marriage  of  Figaro  it  was  justly  said  that 
"  more  wit  was  required  to  get  it  upon  the  stage  than  to 
wiite  it."  During  the  height  of  the  success  of  The  Barber 
of  Seville,  in  1775,  the  Prince  de  Conti  publicly  expressed 
the  opinion  that  the  preface  was  gayer  than  the  piece 
itself,  and  challenged  its  author  to  turn  it  into  a  comedy. 
Beaumarchais  accepted  the  wager  by  writing  The  Marriage 
of  Figaro,  which  was  completed  in  1778,  and  originally 
called  La  Folk  Journee.  The  new  play  was  not  offered 
to  the  Theatre  Frangais  company  until  three  years  later, 
because  at  the  time  of  its  completion  the  author  was  still 
in  conflict  with  the  actors.  During  these  years  Beau- 
marchais carefully  worked  over  the  MS.,  pointing  an  epi- 
gram here,  sharpening  a  malicious  allusion  there,  and, 
above  all,  ruthlessly  deleting  those  passages  in  the  con- 
ventionally florid  manner  often  to  be  found  in  his  earlier 
work  and  not  entirely  absent  from  The  Barber  of  Seville  ; 
for,  like  most  writers  as  they  grow  older  in  the  practice 

232 


About  **  The  Marriage  of  Figaro  *' 

of  letters,  he  had  become  concerned  less  and  less  with 
style,  and  more  and  more  with  life  and  ideas  ;  and,  indeed, 
is  not  a  fussy  preoccupation  with  style  commonly  the  sign 
of  either  the  novice  or  the  pretentious  mediocrity  ?  When 
a  critic  reproached  him  for  the  loose  phraseology  of  his 
dialogue  as  being  "  unworthy  of  his  style,"  he  rephed  : 
"  My  style,  sir  ! — if  by  bad  luck  I  had  one,  I  should  force 
myself  to  forget  it  when  writing  a  comedy,  for  I  know  of 
nothing  more  insipid  than  fine  writing  in  a  theatrical 
composition." 

Immediately  an  understanding  with  the  players  had 
been  reached,  the  new  comedy  was  submitted  to  the 
company,  and  was  received  with  acclamation.  Beau- 
marchais  thereupon  hastened  to  request  the  Minister  of 
Police,  M.  le  Noir,  to  appoint  a  censor  to  examine  the 
work.  The  official  to  whom  this  duty  was  referred  read 
the  comedy,  and,  after  making  a  few  deletions,  to  which  the 
author  was  able  to  agree,  approved  and  recommended  it 
for  the  King's  sanction.  All  now  seemed  plain  sailing. 
But  the  eagerness  of  the  artist  to  read  the  play  to  his 
aristocratic  friends  spoilt  everything.  He  read  it  to  a 
large  company  in  Paris,  and  to  another  at  Versailles. 
He  repeated  the  indiscretion  in  the  house  of  the  Marechale 
de  Richelieu  and  in  that  of  the  Princesse  de  Lamballe, 
and  neither  of  these  exemplary  ladies  saw  in  it  anything 
offensive.  In  order  to  give  an  air  of  intimacy  to  the  occa- 
sion, he  introduced  the  reading  by  a  preface  in  which 
he  wittily  compared  himself  to  a  coquette,  eager  to  accord 
the  favour  which  she  at  first  refuses  and  ends  by  granting, 
although  she  knows  the  fate  which  inevitably  follows  the 
surrender.  After  this  gay  preamble,  he  declaimed  the 
comedy  from  a  fine  MS.,  ornamented  with  pink  ribbons. 

Then  one  day  he  shut  up  the  MS.,  and  firmly  refused 
all  requests  to  read  it  again.  The  public  curiosity,  once 
aroused,  increased  daily.  He  adroitly  made  an  exception 
in  favour  of  the  Grand  Duke  Paul  of  Russia  and  his 
Duchess,  then  on  a  state  visit  to  Paris,  and  hinted  that  if 
he  were  refused  a  hearing  in  Paris  he  would  encounter  no 
such  difficulty  in  St.  Petersburg,  for  the  future  Emperor 
and  his  suite  listened  to  the  reading  with  the  greatest 
interest,  and  expressed  their  admiration  with  enthusiasm. 
This  determined  the  King  to  judge  the  play  for  himself, 

333 


Figaro  :    The  Life  of  Beaumarchais 

but  having  had  it  read  to  him,  he  declared  it  to 
be  "  detestable  and  unpresentable."  This,  of  course, 
amounted  to  a  formal  prohibition.  Baffled  on  one  front, 
Beaumarchais  delivered  a  flank  attack.  He  turned  for 
support  to  the  courtiers,  the  very  people  whom  he  had 
most  unmercifully  ridiculed  in  his  comedy.  *'  Only  little 
people  fear  little  books,"  says  Figaro  in  the  play,  and 
nobody  dared  resent  his  raillery  for  fear  of  being  taken  for 
a  person  of  mean  intelligence.  Almost  to  a  man  they 
arrayed  themselves  on  the  side  of  the  banned  playwright. 
Every  member  of  that  genteel  society  apparently  dis- 
covered in  this  audacious  comedy  shots  which  hit  his 
friends  and  acquaintances  so  much  harder  than  himself 
that,  like  Mr.  Shandy  on  a  similar  occasion,  he  felt  "  'twas 
a  relative  triumph,  and  put  him  in  the  gayest  humour  in 
the  world." 

By  his  astute  strategy  Beaumarchais  had  now  inflamed 
the  curiosity  of  Court  circles  to  such  a  pitch  and  had 
brought  such  powerful  influence  to  bear  that  at  last  he 
obtained  permission  for  the  play  to  be  performed  in  the 
Theatre  des  Menus-Plaisirs.  Actors  and  actresses  were 
word-perfect  and  all  was  ready,  when  a  formal  order  came 
from  the  King  again  prohibiting  the  performance.  The 
reason  of  this  new  check  is  said  to  have  been  that  at  a 
house-party  given  by  the  former  Minister  Amelot,  the 
host  said  to  Beaumarchais  :  **  Wliat  will  prevent  your 
comedy  from  being  performed  is  that  the  King  will  always 
oppose  it,"  and  that  he  flippantly  replied  :  "  Oh  !  if  that 
is  all,  it  will  be  played  !  "     The  truth  is  not  for  all  ears. 

After  a  further  interval,  M.  de  Vaudreuil  himself 
obtained  permission  for  a  private  representation  at  his 
Chateau  de  Gennevilliers,  w^hen  his  guests  were  to  include 
the  King's  brother,  the  Comte  d'Artois,  and  the  Queen's 
favourite,  the  Duchesse  de  Polignac.  It  was  now  the 
turn  of  Beaumarchais  to  become  coy.  The  objections 
which  had  been  raised  to  its  performance,  he  said,  had 
inspired  him  with  serious  doubts  as  to  the  propriety  of  his 
comedy,  and  he  feared  that  some  parts  of  it  might  offend 
such  noble  ears.  Before  consenting  to  the  request  of  M. 
de  Vaudreuil  he  must  stipulate  that  a  fresh  censor  be  ap- 
pointed to  examine  the  work,  and,  in  the  event  of  his 
report  being  favourable,  that  M.  le  Comte  would  use  his 

234 


Mu^:>  .17/ 


From  an  engraving  by  Ltvusiciir,  alley  the  puilnul  by  Duplessis. 

[To  {ace  p,  234. 


I 


i 


I 


About  **  The  Marriage  of  Figaro  " 

influence  to  secure  the  raising  of  the  ban  upon  the  per- 
formance of  the  play  to  the  general  public.  A  new  censor 
was,  accordingly,  detailed  to  read  the  MS.,  and,  under  the 
circumstances,  could  scarcely  fail  to  be  accommodating, 
for  few  were  anxious  to  cross  the  wishes  of  men  and  women 
of  rank  and  fashion.  With  a  few  minor  alterations,  the 
piece  was  approved,  and  was  received  by  a  large  and 
distinguished  audience  with  the  greatest  enthusiasm. 
The  little  theatre  was  overcrowded,  and  the  heat  so  stifling 
that  in  order  to  air  the  hall  Beaumarchais  broke  one  or 
two  panes  of  glass  with  his  cane,  which  caused  it  to  be  said 
that  "  he  had  broken  the  windows  twice  over." 

Powerful  influence  was  now  brought  to  bear  by  several 
members  of  the  audience  to  persuade  the  King  to  reverse 
his  decision,  and  M.  de  Vaudreuil  and  the  Duchesse  de 
Polignac  prevailed  upon  Marie  Antoinette  to  speak  in 
favour  of  its  performance  in  public.  Four  more  censors 
were  thereupon  appointed  to  scrutinize  the  comedy, 
making  six  in  all.  Only  two  declared  against  it,  of  whom 
Suard  alone  unequivocally  condemned  it.  The  King 
was  at  last  persuaded  that  nothing  was  to  be  feared  from 
the  writings  of  a  gay  fellow  like  Beaumarchais,  and  that 
in  any  case  it  would  be  sure  to  fail.  When  this  dictum 
was  repeated  to  Sophie  Arnould  she  said  :  "  Yes,  but  a 
hundred  times  in  succession  ?  " 

Beaumarchais  immediately  took  advantage  of  the  King's 
confident  expectation  by  getting  the  play  produced  with 
the  least  possible  delay,  in  case  Louis  changed  his  mind 
again. 

The  Marriage  of  Figaro  was  first  played  publicly  at  the 
Theatre  Frangais  on  the  27th  April,  1784.  Never  had 
there  been  such  a  scene.  The  competition  for  tickets  was 
the  keenest  that  had  ever  been  known,  and  a  piece  of 
calculated  impertinence  on  the  part  of  the  author  added  to 
the  zest.  The  President  Dupaty  had  addressed  to  him  the 
following  note  : 

"  It  is  very  kind  of  you  to  send  me  a  ticket  for  a  box, 
but  I  very  much  doubt  if  I  can  use  it,  as  I  must  go  to  your 
Figaro  with  some  persons  who  regard  it  with  suspicion  and 
have  their  reasons  not  to  be  seen  there,  that  is  to  say  (for  I 
owe   you   a   clear   explanation),    with   a   mother   and   her 

335 


Figaro  :    The  Life  of  Beaumarchais 

daughters.  If  then  the  box  is  not  one  of  those  on 
the  ground  floor,  where  one  cannot  be  seen,  your  ticket  is 
of  no  use  to  me.  I  should,  however,  be  glad  if  you  would 
in  this  case  change  it  for  a  lower  box  ticket,  for  there  are 
many  people  who  ask  nothing  better  than  to  show  them- 
selves. Lastly,  I  send  you  back  the  ticket,  and  beg  you 
to  give  me  the  pleasure,  the  very  great  pleasure  of 
arranging  things  to  the  satisfaction  of  these  ladies.  With 
the  friendhest  greetings,  I  am,  etc." 

The  reply  of  Beaumarchais,  which  was  widely  circulated, 
and  created  a  great  scandal — its  offensive  tone  drawing  a 
sharp  criticism  from  Horace  Walpole  among  others — was 
couched  in  these  terms  : 

"  M.  le  President,"  he  wrote,  "  I  have  no  consideration 
for  women  who  permit  themselves  to  see  a  spectacle  which 
they  beheve  to  be  improper,  provided  that  it  is  done  in 
secret.  I  will  not  lend  myself  to  such  fancies.  I  have 
given  my  piece  to  the  public  for  their  amusement  and 
instruction,  and  not  to  afford  strait-laced  fools  the  pleasure 
of  thinking  well  of  it  hidden  in  a  box,  on  condition  that 
they  are  allowed  to  speak  ill  of  it  in  society.  Such  is  the 
prudery  of  the  age  that  people  want  to  have  the  pleasures 
of  vice  whilst  retaining  the  honours  of  virtue.  My  piece 
is  not  an  equivocal  work  :  you  must  either  take  it  or  leave 
it.     I  salute  you,  and  keep  my  box." 

In  view  of  the  fact  that  the  friendship  between  the  two 
men  had  always  been  of  the  most  cordial  nature,  and 
remained  so  to  the  end,  and  knowing  our  man,  we  are 
inclined  to  think  that  the  episode  was  an  ingenious,  as  it 
was  a  highly  successful,  piece  of  advertising. 

At  eight  o'clock  in  the  morning  a  vast  queue  had  formed 
outside  the  theatre.  All  the  adjacent  streets  were  com- 
pletely blocked.  The  greatest  lords  and  ladies  in  the  land 
flocked  to  the  performance.  Three  persons  were  said  to 
have  been  suffocated  in  the  crush — "  one  more  than  for 
Scudery,"  as  La  Harpe  slily  remarked.  Society  ladies  shut 
themselves  all  day  long  in  the  actresses'  dressing-rooms, 
dining  with  the  players,  in  order  to  make  sure  of  their 
places. 

236 


About   **  The  Marriage  of  Figaro  '* 

And  all  that  these  people  flocked  to  see  was  a  former 
barber  turned  valet,  befool,  ridicule  and  scoff  at  a  member 
of  their  order  in  the  person  of  the  Count  Almaviva,  or,  as 
Gudin  neatly  phrased  it,  "  to  see  an  insolent  valet  shame- 
lessly disputing  his  wife  w4th  his  master."  Beginning  at 
five-thirty,  the  curtain  rang  down  on  the  performance  at 
ten  o'clock,  the  longest  theatrical  representation  then  on 
record.     Never  had  there  been  such  a  success. 

Yet  of  all  French  writers  of  rank,  Beaumarchais  is  the 
least  correct.  His  work  is  frequently  marred  by  two  oppo- 
site faults — verbosity  and  a  mania  for  concision  leading  to 
downright  obscurity.  He  is  always  liable  to  deplorable 
errors  of  taste,  nor  is  he  free  from  the  inherent  defect  of  all 
writers  of  the  epigrammatic  school — a  poverty  of  emotion 
uncommonly  like  heartlessness.  He  is  utterly  devoid  of 
reverence  and  humility.  He  is  inferior  to  Le  Sage  in  in- 
tensity and  power  of  expression,  to  Marivaux  in  charm  of 
style  and  presentation,  to  Regnard  in  exuberant  inventive- 
ness, and  to  Sedaine  in  moral  quality  and  constructive 
skill;  yet,  in  our  opinion,  the  character  of  Figaro  places 
him  definitely  above  all  these  dramatic  writers,  for  here  he 
has  created  a  universal  type,  has  endowed  him  with  an 
indestructible  vitality,  and  has  exhausted  the  possibilities 
of  the  type,  so  that  no  future  writer  can  make  an  intriguing 
valet  the  central  figure  of  his  work.  In  imaginative  liter- 
ature, this  faculty  for  creating  vital  characters  and  putting 
into  their  mouths  memorable  observations  about  life  is,  we 
think,  the  one  unmistakable  sign  of  quality  ;  and  judged  by 
this  standard  Beaumarchais  is  inferior  only  to  the  greatest, 
for,  having  once  made  the  acquaintance  of  Figaro,  we  are 
as  little  likely  to  forget  him  as  we  are  Falstaff  or  Tartufe, 
Don  Quixote  or  Gil  Bias,  Sam  Weller  or  the  Abbe  Coignard. 
The  creation  of  this  comic  giant,  in  fact,  must  ever  remain 
the  chief  claim  of  Beaumarchais  to  immortality. 

It  may  perhaps  here  be  convenient  to  outline  the  plot  of 
this  comedy. 

Figaro,  concierge  of  the  Chateau  of  Aguas-Frescas,  had 
borrowed  10,000  francs  from  Marceline,  waiting-woman 
in  the  same  mansion,  and  had  given  her  a  written  promise 
to  repay  the  loan  within  a  given  time  or  to  marry  her. 
Being,  however,  deeply  in  love  with  Suzanne,  the  Countess 
of  Almaviva's  maid,  he  is  about  to  marry  her.     The  match 

«37 


Figaro  :    The  Life  of  Beaumarchais 

is  forwarded  by  the  Count,  for  he  himself  has  designs  on 
Suzanne,  and  thinks  that  by  promising  her  a  dowry  she 
will  be  willing  to  allow  him  the  feudal  seignorial  right  over 
her,  which  he  had  already  formally  renounced  in  order  to 
gain  the  good-will  of  his  vassals.  This  little  domestic 
intrigue  is  conducted  on  the  Count's  behalf  by  the  un- 
scrupulous Basile,  music  master  at  the  Chateau.  But  the 
faithful  Suzanne,  who  ardently  returns  Figaro's  love, 
informs  her  mistress  and  her  lover  of  the  Count's  unw^el- 
come  attentions,  whence  arises  an  understanding  between 
these  three  to  frustrate  my  lord's  designs.  Meanwhile, 
Cherubin  (the  direct  literary  forbear,  by  the  way,  of 
Louvet's  Faublas),  page  to  the  Countess,  and  beloved  by 
everybody  in  spite  of  his  precocious  and  mischievous 
pranks,  has  on  several  occasions  inadvertently  surprised 
the  Count  in  his  philanderings  with  his  vassals,  and  has 
thereby  incurred  his  animosity.  The  nobleman  at  last, 
finding  himself  baffled  at  every  turn,  but  without  under- 
standing how  it  has  been  done,  determines  to  avenge  him- 
self by  favouring  the  claims  of  Marceline.  Finding  him- 
self unable  to  seduce  the  young  servant,  he  resolves  to  teach 
Figaro  a  lesson  by  marrying  him  to  the  old  one.  As  chief 
magistrate  of  the  province  of  Andalusia  he  orders  Figaro 
and  Marceline  to  be  brought  before  him,  and,  having  heard 
the  case,  condemns  Figaro  to  marry  her  the  same  day  or 
repay  the  10,000  francs.  This  scene  is  obviously  introduced 
to  give  Beaumarchais  an  opportunity  of  holding  his  own 
judges  up  to  ridicule  and  contempt.  At  this  moment  it  is 
discovered  that  Figaro  is  the  long-lost  son  of  Marceline  and 
our  old  friend  Barfiiolo,  of  The  Barber  of  Seville.  The 
Count  is  naturally  furious.  Meanwhile,  the  Countess,  who 
still  cherishes  the  hope  of  bringing  her  husband  back  to  her 
by  putting  him  in  a  false  position,  has  arranged  that  Suzanne 
shall  pretend  to  grant  the  Count  a  secret  meeting  at 
night  in  the  garden,  but  that  she  herself,  disguised  as  her 
maid,  shall  keep  the  appointment.  Unhappily  for  him, 
Figaro  hears  of  the  favour  granted  by  his  intended  bride. 
Overwhelmed  with  grief  and  jealousy,  he  conceals  himself 
in  the  garden  in  the  hope  of  spoiling  the  fete.  His  misery 
is  still  at  its  height  when  he  is  agreeably  surprised  to  find 
that  he  had  himself  blundered  into  the  trap  which  had  been 
set  for  the  Count,  and  accepts  with    his    habitually  gay 

238 


About   **  The  Marriage  of  Figaro  *' 

philosophy  the  blows  which  the  indignant  Suzanne  showers 
upon  him  for  daring  to  doubt  her  integrity.  He  now 
enters  whole-heartedly  into  the  plot  to  expose  the  Count's 
faithlessness,  and  at  last  Almaviva,  finding  himself,  in  the 
presence  of  his  assembled  vassals,  hopelessly  in  the  wrong, 
throws  himself  on  his  knees  and  begs  his  dear  Rosine's 
pardon.  The  Countess  smilingly  forgives  him  and  Figaro 
marries  Suzanne.  "  That  is  all  :  the  lightest  of  intrigues, 
as  you  see,"  airily  explains  the  author.  Stated  in  this  way 
the  comedy  sounds  harmless  enough,  yet  it  was  the  most 
daring,  the  most  confident  announcement  of  the  coming 
Revolution. 

Beaumarchais  was  singularly  happy  in  his  choice  of 
artists  to  interpret  his  characters.  His  theatrical  instinct 
was  not  at  fault  when  he  chose  the  popular  but  very  mid- 
dling tragedienne  Mile.  Sainval  for  the  part  of  the  Com- 
tesse,  she  proved  an  excellent  comedienne  ;  and  still  less 
when  he  entrusted  that  of  the  gracious  Suzanne  to  the 
then  almost  unknown  Mile.  Contat,  whose  charming  and 
vivacious  personality  captivated  all  hearts.  Mile.  Olivier, 
a  fresh  and  lively  English  girl  of  seventeen  (who  died 
the  following  year),  was  equally  pleasing  as  Cherubin. 
Dazincourt  brought  all  the  wit  and  subtlety  of  a  great 
comedian  to  the  interpretation  of  the  complex  and  ironical 
Figaro  ;  whilst  Mole  played  the  part  of  Almaviva  with 
grace  and  distinction.  Old  Preville  amused  the  audience 
as  Brid'oison,  but  the  comic  possibilities  of  the  part  were 
only  fully  brought  out  when  he  retired  in  favour  of 
Dugazon,  whose  stammering  tongue  and  clever  ^'make-up  " 
kept  the  whole  house  in  an  uproar  of  merriment  whenever 
he  made  his  appearance.* 

The  unprecedented  success  of  the  comedy  again  set 
the  enemies  and  detractors  of  Beaumarchais  in  a  ferment, 
and  a  deluge  of  scurrilities  in  prose  and  verse  was  showered 
upon  him,  whilst  the  implacable  Suard  went  out  of  his 
way  to  attack  him  at  a  full  sitting  of  the  Academy, 
and  continued  the  feud  with  bitterness  in  the  Journal  de 
Paris.  In  one  of  these  articles  he  sneeringly  asked  what 
had  become  of  the  little  Figaro,  mentioned  in  The  Barber 
of  Seville,  but  not  referred  to  again.     Beaumarchais  at  once 

*  See  Mantzius  (K.),     "  History  of  Theatrical  Art,"    Vol.   vi.    1921,    pp. 
106-110. 

239 


Figaro  :    The  Life  of  Beaumarchais 

replied  that,  coming  to  France  some  years  ago,  she  had 
married  a  workman  in  the  Porte  Saint  Nicolas  quarter, 
named  Lecluse,  who  had  just  been  killed  in  an  accident, 
leaving  her  in  penury,  with  two  children  in  arms.  He 
ended  by  appealing  to  his  enemy  to  join  him  in  helping  the 
unhappy  widow.  To  counter  Suard's  mahce,  Beaumarchais 
had  seized  on  a  genuine  case  in  which  he  was  at  the  moment 
interesting  himself,  hoping  to  involve  his  adversary  in  a 
charity.  Suard's  only  response  was  to  attack  him  more  than 
ever.  At  last,  goaded  beyond  endurance,  Beaumarchais 
declared  to  the  publishers  of  the  Journal  de  Paris  that 
in  future  he  did  not  propose  to  reply  to  anonymous 
insults.  He  would  have  done  well  to  end  there,  but  he 
concluded,  "  Having  had  to  conquer  lions  and  tigers  to 
get  my  comedy  played,  do  you  imagine  that,  after  its 
success,  you  will  reduce  me,  like  a  Dutch  servant,  to  beat  out 
the  vile  insect  of  the  night  in  public  every  morning  ?  " 
Unhappily  for  Beaumarchais,  the  Comte  de  Provence, 
afterwards  Louis  XVHL,  had  secretly  taken  part  in  the 
dispute  against  him,  and  Suard,  stung  by  that  part  of  the 
antithesis  obviously  intended  for  him,  avenged  himself  by 
insinuating  in  the  proper  quarter  that  the  other  part  was 
aimed  at  the  King  and  Queen.  Louis  was  at  the  card- 
table  when  the  matter  was  reported  to  him,  and  it  made  him 
so  angry,  says  Arnault  in  his  Souvenirs  d'un  Sexagenaire, 
that,  without  rising  from  his  chair,  he  pencilled  upon  the 
back  of  a  seven  of  spades  an  order  for  the  immediate  arrest 
of  Beaumarchais,  and,  adding  insult  to  injury,  commanded 
him  to  be  conveyed  to  Saint  Lazare.  Thus ,  on  an  accusation 
dictated  by  spite  and  tittle-tattle,  one  of  the  richest  and 
most  celebrated  Frenchmen  of  his  time,  author  of  the  two 
wittiest  comedies  since  Moliere,  whose  work  was  even  then 
adding  lustre  to  the  French  stage,  found  himself,  at  fifty-three 
years  of  age,  in  a  prison  till  then  reserved  for  depraved  and 
incorrigible  youths. 

At  first  Paris  laughed  heartily  over  the  enormity  of  the 
ineptitude,  as  it  is  apt  to  do  on  such  occasions,  but  soon  the 
public  became  restless  and  clamoured  for  the  victim's 
prompt  release.  Five  days  later  he  was  politely  requested 
to  leave  the  prison,  which  he  at  first  refused  to  do  until 
he  had  been  accused  and  judged.  It  was  not  often  that 
Louis  XVL  had  to  repent  of  hastiness,  but  his  good  sense 

240 


About   **  The  Marriage  of  Figaro  " 

soon  convinced  him  that  he  had  been  betrayed  into  putting 
a  false  construction  on  the  phrase  used  by  Beaumarchais, 
and  he  almost  begged  the  protesting  victim  of  his  irritability 
to  allow  himself  to  be  liberated.  A  few  days  later  he 
gratified  the  injured  author  by  intimating  that  orders 
had  been  given  for  a  performance  of  The  Barber  of  Seville 
at  the  model  Court  Theatre  of  Trianon,  at  which  the  Queen 
would  play  the  part  of  Rosine,  the  Comte  d'Artois  that  of 
Figaro,  and  M.  de  Vaudreuil  that  of  Almaviva,  and  inviting 
him  to  attend.  "  Surely,"  as  Grimm  says,  "  no  more 
delicate  or  flattering  amends  could  be  made  to  Beaumar- 
chais  for  the  affront  which  had  been  put  upon  him." 

The  contrite  Louis  further  ordered  the  last  and  most 
considerable  instalment  of  the  indemnity  for  the  loss  of 
his  merchant  fleet  to  be  paid  over  to  the  head  of  the  firm 
of  Rodrigue  Hortales  and  Co.,  merchant  adventurers. 


341  i6 


CHAPTER  XXVII 

''  THE    MARRIAGE   OF   FIGARO  " 

FEW  writers  ever  made  more  consistent  use  of  the 
creatures  of  their  imagination  for  the  propagation 
of  their  views  of  the  world,  the  flesh  and  the  devil  than 
Beaumarchais.  As  we  attach  considerable  importance  to 
the  Figaro  plays  as  a  revelation  of  the  mind  and  a  com- 
mentary on  the  life  of  their  author,  we  cannot  do  better, 
we  think,  than  follow  the  plan  adopted  when  dealing  with 
The  Barber  of  Seville,  by  furnishing  the  reader  with  a  rough 
translation  and  summary  of  The  Marriage  of  Figaro. 

The  comedy  opens  in  a  half-furnished  room  in  the 
Castle  of  Aguas-Frescas.  Figaro,  the  factotum,  is  busy 
measuring  the  walls,  whilst  Suzanne,  my  lady's  maid, 
stands  before  a  mirror  putting  on  her  head  the  traditional 
circlet  of  orange  blossom  known  as  the  bride's  chaplet. 

Figaro.     Nineteen  by  twenty-six  ! 

Suzanne.  Tell  me,  Figaro.  Does  my  chaplet  suit  me 
better  so  ? 

Figaro  (taking  her  hands).  Incomparably,  my  charming 
one  !  Oh  !  how  sweet  to  a  husband's  loving  eye  is  this 
pretty  virginal  bouquet  on  a  beautiful  girl's  head  on  her 
wedding  morn  ! 

Suzanne  (withdrawing  her  hands).  WTiat  are  you 
measuring  there,  my  boy  ? 

Figaro.  I  was  just  seeing  whether  the  fine  bed  which 
the  master  has  given  us  would  go  well  here. 

Suzanne.     In  this  room  ? 

Figaro.     He  has  given  it  up  to  us. 

Suzanne.     Well,  I  won't  have  it ! 

Figaro.     Why  not  ? 

Suzanne.     I  won't  have  it ! 
242 


**The  Marriage  of  Figaro*' 

Figaro.     But  why  not  ? 

Suzanne.     I  don't  like  it. 

Figaro.     But,  surely  you  can  give  a  reason. 

Suzanne.     What  if  I  do  not  wish  to  do  so. 

Figaro.     Oh  !  how  sure  of  us  they  are  ! 

Suzanne.  To  prove  that  I  am  right  would  be  to  agree 
that  I  might  be  wrong.     Are  you  my  servant,  yes  or  no  ? 

Figaro.  You  take  a  dishke  to  the  most  convenient 
room  in  the  castle.  It  is  between  the  two  apartments. 
If  my  lady  is  taken  ill  during  the  night,  she  will  ring  the 
bell  on  her  side  :  hop  !  in  two  steps  you  are  with  her.  If 
my  lord  wants  anything,  he  has  only  to  sound  his,  and, 
jump  !    in  three  bounds  I  am  there. 

Suzanne.  I  dare  say  !  but  one  fnie  morning,  when  he 
has  rung  his  bell  and  packed  you  off  on  a  long  errand, 
hop  !  in  two  steps  he  is  at  my  door,  and,  jump  !  in  three 
bounds 

Figaro.     What  do  you  mean  ? 

Suzanne.     You  must  listen  to  me  quietly. 

Figaro.     Good  God  !  what  is  it  ? 

Suzanne.  The  fact  is,  my  dear,  that  Count  Almaviva, 
tired  of  courting  the  beauties  about  here,  wishes  to  go  back 
to  the  castle,  but  not  to  his  wife  ;  it  is  upon  yours  (do  you 
understand  ?)  that  he  has  cast  his  eyes,  and  he  hopes 
that  this  lodging  will  do  no  harm  to  his  prospects.  And  this 
is  what  the  loyal  Basile,  the  honest  agent  of  his  pleasures 
and  my  noble  singing-master,  repeats  to  me  every  morning 
when  giving  me  my  lesson. 

Figaro.  Basile  !  my  fine  fellow,  let  me  only  get  hold 
of  you  ! 

Suzanne.  So  you  really  thought,  my  poor  boy,  that 
this  dowry  he  is  giving  me  was  a  reward  for  your  services  ? 

Figaro.     I  had  done  enough  to  hope  so. 

Suzanne.     How  stupid  clever  people  are  ! 

Figaro.     They  say  so. 

Suzanne.     Yes,  but  nobody  will  beheve  it. 

Figaro.     That  is  where  everybody  is  wrong. 

Suzanne.  Learn,  then,  that  his  design  is  to  obtain  of 
me  secretly  a  certain  quarter-of-an-hour  alone — an  ancient 
seignorial  right  .  .  .  you  know  what  I  mean,  and  how 
shameful  it  is. 

Figaro.     I  know  it  so  well  that  if  the  Count,  on  marrying, 
243  16* 


Figaro  :   The  Life  of  Beaumarchais 

had  not  formally  abolished  this  shameful  right,  I  would 
never  have  wedded  you  in  his  domains. 

Suzanne.  Well,  then,  if  he  has  abolished  it,  he  repents 
having  done  so,  and  it  is  from  your  bride  that  he  seeks  to 
buy  it  back  secretly  to-day.  ... 

Figaro.  Ah  !  if  only  I  could  think  of  a  way  of  trapping 
this  arch  deceiver  and  pocketing  his  money  ! 

Suzanne.  Intrigue  and  money  :  that  is  just  your 
sphere.  .  .  . 

On  Suzanne  leaving  him  Figaro  encounters  Dr.  Bartholo 
and  Marceline,  and  after  a  little  joking  at  their  expense 
passes  on  his  way.  \\'hen  they  are  alone,  Marcehne  tells 
the  doctor  that  the  Count  neglects  his  wife  and  is  in  active 
pursuit  of  Suzanne.  She  then  reminds  him  of  his  promise 
many  years  ago  to  marry  her,  but  since  he  seems  indis- 
posed to  do  so,  she  begs  him  to  help  her  to  marry  Figaro, 
and  thus  enable  her  to  escape  from  the  unwelcome  atten- 
tions of  Basile,  for,  she  remarks,  "  even  the  most  adven- 
turous woman  hears  a  voice  within  her  which  says  :  '  Be 
beautiful  if  thou  canst  ;  good  if  thou  wilt  ;  but  be  re- 
spected you  must,'  So  since  every  woman  feels  the  abso- 
lute necessity  of  being  respected,  let  us  try  Suzanne  by 
divulging  the  secret  offers  which  have  been  made  to  her." 
Suzanne,  she  argues,  will  be  so  ashamed  that  she  will 
continue  to  refuse  the  Count's  proposals,  who  will  avenge 
himself  b}^  forwarding  her  own  designs  upon  Figaro. 

At  this  point  Suzanne  enters,  and  there  is  a  sharp  but 
excessively  polite  passage  at  arms  between  the  two  women 
over  Figaro,  and  they  part  with  double-edged  compli- 
ments. 

Cherubin  now  accosts  Suzanne. 

Cherubin.  Ah  !  Suzon,  I  have  been  watching  for  the 
last  two  hours  to  find  you  a  moment  alone !  Alas ! 
you  are  going  to  be  married,  and  I  am  going  away  ! 

Suzanne.  Why  should  my  marriage  be  the  cause  of 
my  lord's  first  page  going  away  ? 

Cherubin  (tearfully).     Suzanne,  he  has  dismissed  me  ! 

Suzanne  (mimicking  him).     Cherubin  !   some  fresh  folly. 

Cherubin.  He  found  me  yesterday  evening  with  your 
cousin  Fanchette,  with  whom  I  was  rehearsing  her  part 
for  the  fete  this  evening.     He  got  so  angry  when  he  saw 

244 


**The  Marriage  of  Figaro" 

me!     "Get  out,  you  little "     I  dare  not  pronounce 

in  the  presence  of  a  woman  the  bad  word  he  used.  "  Get 
out !  and  to-morrow  you  shall  not  sleep  in  the  Castle."  If 
my  lady,  my  beautiful  godmother,  does  not  succeed  in 
appeasing  him  it  is  all  up  with  me,  Suzanne.  I  shall  for 
ever  be  deprived  of  the  happiness  of  seeing  you. 

Suzanne.  Of  seeing  me  ?  Now  it  is  my  turn  !  So  it 
is  no  longer  for  my  mistress  that  you  secretly  sigh  ! 

Cherubin.  Ah,  Suzon  !  How  noble  and  how  beautiful 
she  is  !     But  how  imposing  ! 

Suzanne.  That  is  to  say  I  am  not,  and  that  with  me 
you  can  dare 

Cherubin.  You  know,  little  wretch,  that  I  dare  not 
dare.  But  how  happy  is  your  lot  !  To  see  her  at  all 
times,  to  speak  to  her,  to  dress  her  in  the  morning  and  to 
undress  her  at  night  .  .  .  pin  by  pin.  .  .  .  Suzon,  I  would 
give What  have  you  in  your  hand  ? 

Suzanne  (teasingly).  Alas  !  the  happy  bonnet  and  the 
thrice  happy  ribbon  which  every  night  confines  the  hair 
of  that  beautiful  godmother  ! 

Cherubin.     Her  ribbon  !     Give  it  to  me,  sweetheart. 

Suzanne.  Certainly  not  !  "  Sweetheart,"  quotha ! 
How  familiar  he  is  !  If  it  were  not  that  he  is  an  insig- 
nificant   little    brat (Cherubin    snatches    away    the 

ribbon.) 

Cherubin  (running  behind  a  chair).  You  can  tell  her 
you  have  mislaid  it  ;  spoilt  it,  lost  it.  Tell  her  what  you 
like. 

Suzanne  (running  after  him).  I  predict  that  in  three  or 
four  years'  time  you  will  be  a  thorough  little  good-for- 
nothing.     Give  me  back  the  ribbon  ! 

Cherubin  (drawing  a  song  from  his  pocket).  Let  me 
keep  it.  Do  let  me  keep  it,  Suzon,  then  I  will  give  you 
my  song,  and  whilst  the  thought  of  my  beautiful  mistress 
will  sadden  all  the  days  of  my  life,  yours  will  shed  over 
them  the  only  ray  of  light  which  can  still  gladden  my 
heart. 

Suzanne  (snatching  the  song  from  him).  Gladden  your 
heart,  you  little  rascal !  You  think  you  are  talking  to 
your  Fanchette  ;  you  are  surprised  with  her  ;  you  sigh 
after  my  lady,  and  you  tell  me  the  tale  into  the  bargain. 

Cherubin.  It  is  true  :  on  my  honour  I  don't  know 
245 


Figaro  :   The  Life  of  Beau  mar  chais 

what  is  the  matter  with  me,  but  for  some  time  past  I  have 
become  so  agitated,  and  my  heart  beats  furiously  at  the 
sight  of  a  woman  ;  the  words  love  and  bliss  make  it  leap 
and  grow  troubled.  In  fact,  the  need  to  say  to  somebody 
"  I  love  you  "  has  become  so  urgent  that  I  say  it  aloud  to 
myself  running  in  the  park,  to  your  mistress,  to  you,  to 
the  clouds,  to  the  wind,  which  carries  away  my  vain  words. 
Yesterday  I  met  Marceline.  .  .  . 

Suzanne.     Ha  !   ha  !   ha  !   ha  ! 

Cherubin.  Why  not  ?  She  is  a  woman.  She  is 
single  !  A  girl,  a  woman  !  What  sweet  names  !  How 
interesting  they  are  ! 

Suzanne.     I  believe  he  is  going  mad  ! 

Cherubin.  Fanchette  is  kind-hearted ;  she  does  at 
least  listen  to  me.     Not  like  you. 

Suzanne.  Diddums  !  Now  listen  to  me,  sir.  (She 
tries  to  snatch  away  the  ribbon.) 

Cherubin  (turning  and  running  away).  Ah  !  no ! 
I  will  part  with  it  only  with  my  life — see  !  But  if  you  are 
not  satisfied  with  the  price  I  will  throw  in  a  thousand 
kisses.     (He  chases  her  in  his  turn.) 

Suzanne  (running  away).  A  thousand  smacks  if  you 
come  near  me  !  I  shall  complain  of  you  to  my  mistress  ; 
and,  far  from  asking  pardon  for  you,  I  myself  will  tell  my 
lord  :  "  It  serves  him  right,  my  lord.  Drive  the  little 
villain  away.  Send  the  little  rascal  back  to  his  parents, 
for  he  makes  eyes  at  my  lady,  and  tries  to  kiss  me  into  the 
bargain." 

Cherubin  (seeing  the  Count  enter,  throws  himself,  in 
his  alarm,  behind  an  armchair).     I  am  lost  ! 

Suzanne.     What  a  fright  you  gave  me  ! 

The  Count  draws  Suzanne  towards  him,  soothes  her  and 
tries  to  make  love  to  her,  but  she  indignantly  rejects 
his  advances.  He  is  interrupted  by  Basile's  voice,  shouting 
for  Figaro,  and  immediately  hides  behind  the  armchair, 
Cherubin  slipping  out  just  in  time  and  concealmg  himself  in 
an  easy  chair  standing  near  by.  Basile  renews  his  insidious 
proposals  to  Suzanne  on  behalf  of  the  Count.  He  accuses 
her  of  encouraging  Cherubin  to  make  love  to  her. 

Suzanne.  What  a  lie !  Leave  me  this  instant,  you 
wicked  fellow  ! 

246 


**The  Marriage  of  Figaro" 

Basile.  I  am  wicked  because  I  keep  my  eyes  open. 
Was  it  not  for  you  that  he  wrote  the  song  of  which  he 
makes  such  a  mystery  ? 

Suzanne  (angrily).     Yes,  for  me.  .  .  . 

Basile.  Unless,  of  course,  he  composed  it  for  my  lady. 
In  fact,  when  he  serves  at  the  table  they  say  he  makes 
such  eyes  at  her  !  But  he  had  better  look  out.  If  he  is 
found  playing  that  game  he  will  find  my  lord  is  an  ugly 
customer  to  deal  with  ! 

Suzanne.  And  you  are  a  great  scoundrel  to  go  about 
spreading  such  stories  to  ruin  an  unhappy  boy  who  has 
fallen  into  disgrace  with  his  master. 

Basile.  Did  I  invent  it  ?  I  merely  repeat  what  every- 
body is  saying. 

The  Count  (getting  up).  What's  this  ?  Everybody 
is  speaking  about  it  ? 

Suzanne.     Oh,  heaven  ! 

Basile.     Ha  !  ha  ! 

The  Count.  Be  quick,  Basile,  and  turn  him  out  of 
the  house  ! 

Basile.     How  sorry  I  am  to  have  intruded.  .  .  . 

Suzanne.     My  God  !    my  God  ! 

The  Count.  She  feels  faint.  Let  us  put  her  in  this 
easy  chair. 

Suzanne.  I  won't  sit  down.  How  dare  you  come  into 
my  room  in  this  free  and  easy  way  :   it  is  shameful ! 

Count.  There  are  two  of  us  with  you,  my  dear.  There 
is  no  longer  the  least  danger. 

Basile.  I  am  dreadfully  upset  to  have  made  merry 
over  the  page,  since  you  overheard  me  :  I  spoke  so  only  to 
find  out  what  she  thought  about  him,  for  really  .  .  . 

Count.  Give  him  fifty  pistoles,  a  horse,  and  send  him 
straight  back  to  his  parents. 

Basile.     My  lord  !    merely  for  a  joke  .  .  . 

Count.  He  is  a  little  libertine  :  only  yesterday  I 
surprised  him  with  the  gardener's  daughter. 

Basile.     With  Fanchette  ? 

Count.     In  her  room. 

Suzanne  (exasperated).  Where,  doubtless,  my  lord 
also  had  business. 

Count  (gaily).     I  rather  like  that  remark. 

Basile.     It  is  a  good  sign. 
247 


Figaro  :    The  Life  of  Beaumarchais 

Count.  However,  you  are  wrong  ;  I  was  looking  for 
your  uncle,  my  drunken  gardener,  to  give  him  some  orders. 
I  knocked  ;  they  were  a  long  time  opening.  Your  cousin 
looked  very  embarrassed  ;  this  made  me  suspicious.  I 
spoke  to  her,  and  whilst  talking  I  looked  about  me.  Behind 
the  door  there  was  a  kind  of  curtain.  .  .  .  Pretending  to 
be  unconscious  of  what  I  was  doing  I  gently,  very  gently, 
lifted  the  curtain  (in  imitation  of  his  gesture  he  lifts  the 
dress  which  Suzanne  had  thrown  over  the  chair  to  conceal 
Cherubin)  .  .  .  and  I  saw  (he  sees  the  page)  ...  Oh  ! 

Basile.     Ha!  ha! 

Count.     This  trick  is  as  good  as  the  other. 

Basile.     Better. 

Count.  Splendid,  miss  ;  no  sooner  betrothed  than  you 
start  these  sort  of  arrangements  ?  Was  it  to  welcome  my 
page  that  you  wanted  to  be  alone  ?  And  you,  sir,  show 
no  signs  of  amendment  ;  without  regard  to  the  respect 
.,  that  you  owe  to  your  godmother  you  make  advances  to  her 
maid,  the  wife  of  your  friend !  But  I  will  not  allow 
Figaro,  a  man  whom  I  respect  and  love,  to  be  the  victim 
of  such  deception.     Was  he  with  you,  Basile  ? 

Suzanne  (angrily).  There  is  neither  deception  nor 
victim  ;   he  was  here  whilst  you  were  speaking  to  me. 

Count.  I  hope  you  are  lying.  His  worst  enemy  would 
not  wish  him  such  a  misfortune. 

Suzanne.  He  came  to  ask  me  to  persuade  my  lady  to 
plead  for  his  pardon.  He  was  so  frightened  at  your  entrance 
that  he  hid  himself  in  this  chair. 

The  Count,  convinced  that  they  are  lying  to  him, 
becomes  increasingly  angry,  and  ends  by  telhng  Suzanne 
that  she  shall  not  marry  Figaro. 

At  this  moment  a  deputation  of  servants,  peasants  and 
village  girls,  headed  by  Fanchette,  wait  upon  the  Count, 
who  is  now  joined  by  his  wife.  Figaro,  the  spokesman 
(to  the  Count's  infinite  embarrassment),  slyly  but  elo- 
quently pays  tribute  to  his  clemency  in  waiving  the  right 
which  has  been  such  a  constant  source  of  vexation  and 
heart-burning  to  his  tenants.  The  speech  is  greeted  with 
hearty  applause.  The  Countess  takes  advantage  of  the 
general  good  feehng  to  beg  Almaviva  to  pardon  Cherubin. 
This  he  agrees  to  do,  and  gives  him  a  commission  in  his 

248 


**  The  Marriage  of  Figaro  " 

regiment,  on  condition  that  he  set  out  forthwith  to  take 
up  the  appointment. 

In  the  next  scene,  Figaro  observes  Cherubin's  dis- 
appointment at  having  to  leave  before  the  fete,  and, 
thinking  that  he  may  perhaps  be  useful,  tells  him  to  make 
a  pretence  of  departure  and  to  conceal  himself  till  the 
evening,  and  when  the  entertainment  is  over  promises  to 
make  his  peace  with  the  Count. 

The  second  act  opens  with  a  conversation  between 
the  Countess  and  Suzanne,  in  which  the  latter  relates  to 
her  the  episode  of  the  ribbon  and  of  the  Count's  advances 
to  herself.  The  Countess  betrays  some  jealousy  of  her 
husband  and  is  touched  by  the  devotion  of  the  page.  The 
pair  resolve  to  warn  Figaro  and  seek  his  advice  to  frustrate 
Almaviva's  project  of  marrying  him  to  Marceline. 

On  Figaro's  entry  Suzanne  cries  : 

"  My  dear,  do  be  quick  !     My  lady  is  so  impatient  ! 

Figaro.  And  what  about  you,  my  little  Suzanne  ? 
My  lady  has  no  cause  for  w^orry.  Besides,  what  is  it  all 
about  ?  The  merest  trifle.  The  Count  finds  our  young 
wife  attractive :  he  desires  to  make  her  his  mistress  : 
it  is  only  natural. 

Suzanne.     Natural  ? 

Figaro.  So  he  nominates  me  Special  Messenger,  and 
Suzon  Counsel  to  the  Embassy.  He  knew  very  well  what 
he  was  about. 

Suzanne.     When  will  you  have  done  ? 

Figaro.  And  because  Suzanne,  my  betrothed,  will  not 
accept  the  appointment,  he  intends  to  favour  the  designs 
of  Marceline — what  could  be  simpler  ?  Avenge  ourselves 
upon  those  who  upset  our  plans  by  overthrowing  theirs  : 
everybody  does  that — that  is  what  we  are  going  to  do. 
Well,  that's  all  ! 

Countess.  Figaro,  how  can  you  treat  a  matter  which 
so  nearly  concerns  the  happiness  of  us  all  with  such 
flippancy  ? 

Figaro.     Who  said  that,  my  lady  ? 

Suzanne.  Instead  of  sympathizing  with  our 
sorrows.  .  .  . 

Figaro.  Is  it  not  enough  that  they  are  engaging  my 
249 


Figaro  :   The  Life  of  Beaumarchais 

attention  ?  Now,  let  us  act  as  methodically  as  he  does, 
and  first  of  all,  let  us  cool  the  ardour  of  his  pursuit  of  our 
belongings  by  making  him  uneasy  about  his  own. 

Countess.     That  is  easily  said,  but  how  ? 

Figaro.  It  is  already  done,  my  lady  :  a  faked  warning 
about  you.  .  .  . 

Countess.  About  me !  You  must  be  losing  your 
senses  ! 

Figaro.  Not  at  all.  It  is  he  who  is  going  to  lose  his 
senses. 

Countess.     Such  a  jealous  man  too  !  .  .  . 

Figaro.  So  much  the  better  ;  to  circumvent  people 
of  that  sort  it  is  only  necessary  to  whisk  up  their  blood 
a  little,  as  women  know  so  well  how  to  do ;  then, 
when  they  have  got  them  red  in  the  face,  with  a  little 
management  they  can  lead  them  by  the  nose  wherever 
they  hke,  even  into  the  Guadalquivir.  I  have  given 
Basile  a  letter,  on  the  quiet,  from  you,  which  will  warn 
my  lord  that  an  admirer  will  be  on  the  look-out  for  you 
during  the  ball  to-night. 

Countess.  Is  it  thus  that  you  trifle  with  the  truth 
respecting  an  honourable  woman  ? 

Figaro.  There  are  very  few,  my  lady,  with  whom 
I  would  dare  it — for  fear  of  being  right. 

Countess.    He  expects  me  to  thank  him  into  the  bargain  ! 

Figaro.  But  you  must  own  it  is  pleasant  to  have  cut 
out  his  work  for  the  day  in  such  a  way  that  he  will  be  kept 
hanging  about  his  own  wife  during  the  whole  time  he  hoped 
to  be  amusing  himself  with  mine  !  He  is  baffled  already. 
Shall  he  make  a  dash  for  this  one  ;  or  had  he  better  keep 
a  watchful  eye  on  that  one  ?  In  his  bewilderment  he  will 
not  know  which  way  to  turn.  Meanwhile,  the  wedding 
hour  is  rapidly  approaching  :  he  will  not  have  time  to 
prevent  it,  and  he  would  never  dare  openly  oppose  it  in 
my  lady's  presence. 

Suzanne.  Perhaps  not,  but  Marceline  has  sharp  wits, 
and  she  will  dare. 

Figaro.  Fiddlesticks  !  That  doesn't  worry  me  in  the 
least.  You  can  tell  my  lord  that  you  will  meet  him  at  dusk 
in  the  garden. 

Suzanne.     You  count  on  that,  do  you  ? 

Figaro.  Why  not  ?  People  who  will  never  dare  any- 
250 


**The  Marriage  of  Figaro" 

thing  will  never  succeed  in  anything,  and  are  no  good  for 
anything — that  is  what  I  say. 

Suzanne.     It  is  charming  ! 

Countess.  Like  his  idea.  Would  you  consent  to  her 
going  ? 

Figaro.  Not  at  all.  I  will  dress  somebody  in  her 
clothes  :  then  we  could  take  the  Count  by  surprise  at  this 
secret  interview — and  what  could  he  say  ? 

Countess.     Whom  would  you  send  ? 

Figaro.     Cherubin. 

Countess.     He  has  gone. 

Figaro.  Not  for  me  :  will  you  let  me  manage  this 
affair  ? 

Suzanne.     He  can  be  trusted  to  manage  an  intrigue. 

Figaro.  Two,  three,  four  at  a  time,  well  mixed  up  and 
crossing  each  other.     I  ought  to  have  been  a  courtier. 

Countess.     They  say  it  is  a  difficult  calling. 

Figaro.  Accept,  take,  ask  :  there  is  the  secret  in  three 
words. 

Countess.  He  has  so  much  assurance  that  he  inspires 
me  with  his  own  confidence. 

Figaro.     That  is  what  I  meant  to  do. 

Suzanne.     You  were  saying  ? 

Figaro.  That  during  my  lord's  absence  I  will  send 
Cherubin  to  you  ;  arrange  his  hair,  dress  him  up,  and  I 
will  wind  him  up  and  coach  him  ;  and  then,  my  lord,  we 
will  lead  you  a  pretty  dance  ! 

On  Cherubin' s  arrival  the  two  women  set  about  dis- 
guising him,  and  whilst  doing  so  discover  that  he  has 
already  received  his  commission,  but  that  the  Count,  in  his 
hurry  to  get  rid  of  him,  has  forgotten  to  affix  his  seal  to 
the  document.  The  Countess  is  still  busy  dressing  the 
page,  whilst  Suzanne  has  gone  out  to  hide  his  cloak,  when 
the  Count's  voice  is  heard  outside  : 

Count.     W'hy  have  you  locked  yourself  in  ? 

Countess  (in  confusion).  My  husband  !  Oh  !  heaven  ! 
(To  Cherubin)  You  here  without  a  cloak,  with  neck  and 
arms  bare,  the  room  in  disorder,  the  letter  he  has  received, 
his  jealousy  !   .  .  . 

Count.     Why  do  you  not  open  the  door  ? 

Countess.     Because  .  .  .  I — I  am  alone. 
«5i 


Figaro  :   The  Life  of  Beaumarchais 

Count.     Alone  ?  .  .  .  Then  to  whom  are  you  speaking  ? 

Countess  (at  a  loss).     To  you,  to  be  sure. 

Cherubin  (aside).  After  the  scenes  of  yesterday  and 
this  morning  he  will  kill  me  on  the  spot.  (He  darts  into 
the  boudoir  and  shuts  himself  in.) 

The  Countess  quickly  locks  him  in,  removes  the  ke}^, 
and  runs  to  let  the  Count  in. 

Countess  (aside).  Oh  !  what  shall  I  do  ?  What  shall 
I  do? 

Count  (harshly).     You  do  not  usually  lock  yourself  in  ! 

Countess.  I  was  ...  I  was  doing  needlework.  .  .  . 
Yes,  I  was  doing  needlework  with  Suzanne  ;  she  has  just 
gone  to  her  room  for  a  moment. 

Count  (looking  at  her  closely).  You  seem  very  dis- 
turbed. 

Countess.  No  wonder.  .  .  .  No  wonder  at  all  !  .  .  . 
I  assure  you  we  were  speaking  of  you.  .  .  .  She  has  just 
left  me,  as  I  told  you. 

Count.  You  were  speaking  of  me  !  .  .  .  My  uneasiness 
brought  me  back.  As  I  was  mounting  my  horse  a  note 
was  handed  to  me.  I  do  not  credit  it  in  the  least,  but  it 
has  upset  me. 

Countess.     What  do  you  mean,  sir  ?     What  note  ? 

Count.  You  must  admit,  madam,  that  you  and  I  are 
surrounded  by  .  .  .  very  .  .  .  wicked  people.  I  have 
been  informed  that  somebody  whom  I  thought  to  be 
absent  would  to-day  seek  access  to  you. 

Countess.  Whoever  this  daring  person  may  be,  he  will 
have  to  penetrate  here,  for  I  do  not  intend  to  leave  my 
room  to-day. 

Count.     Except  this  evening  for  Suzanne's  wedding  ? 

Countess.     On  no  account  whatever  :    I  am  not  well. 

Count.  Fortunately  the  doctor  is  here.  (At  this 
moment  the  page  knocks  over  a  chair  in  the  boudoir.) 
What  is  that  noise  ? 

Countess  (agitated).     What  noise  ? 

Count.     Somebody  let  a  piece  of  furniture  fall. 

Countess.     I  ...  I  did  not  hear  anything. 

Count.     Then  you  must  be  very  much  preoccupied. 

Countess.     Preoccupied  ?     Why  should  I  be  ? 

Count.     There  is  somebody  in  this  room,  madam  ! 

Countess.     Oh  !    who  do  you  think  would  be  there  ? 
352 


**The  Marriage  of  Figaro'* 

Count.  That  is  what  I  am  asking  you  ;  I  have  only 
just  come. 

Countess.  Well  .  .  .  Suzanne  is  apparently  arranging 
some  things  in  there. 

Count.     You  said  she  had  gone  to  her  room. 

Countess.  Either  gone  to  her  room  or  in  there,  I  cannot 
tell. 

Count.     If  it  is  Suzanne  why  are  you  so  perturbed  ? 

Countess.     Perturbed  for  my  maid  ? 

Count.  I  do  not  know  whether  it  is  for  your  maid, 
but  perturbed  you  certainly  are. 

Countess.  I  can  assure  you,  sir,  that  girl  agitates  and 
perturbs  you  more  than  she  does  me. 

Count  (angrily).  She  perturbs  me,  madam.,  to  such  an 
extent  that  I  desire  to  see  her  this  instant. 

Countess.  I  quite  believe  you  very  often  desire  it ; 
but  what  is  the  meaning  of  these  singularly  ill-founded 
suspicions  ?  .  .  .  (At  this  moment  Suzanne  looks  in  at 
the  door.) 

Count.  Then  they  will  be  all  the  easier  to  dispel. 
(He  shouts  outside  the  door  of  the  boudoir.)  Suzanne  ! 
Come  out  this  instant ! 

Suzanne  stays  near  the  alcove  at  the  end  of  the  room. 

Countess.  She  has  hardly  anything  on,  sir.  How  can 
you  disturb  women  thus  in  their  privacy  ?  She  is  trying 
on  some  things  I  gave  her  on  her  marriage  :  she  fled  when 
she  heard  you. 

Count.  Even  if  she  is  so  much  afraid  of  showing  herself, 
she  can  at  least  speak.  (He  again  turns  towards  the  door.) 
Answer  me,  Suzanne,  are  you  in  here  ? 

Suzanne  hides  herself  in  the  alcove. 

Countess.  Suzanne,  I  forbid  you  to  answer  !  (To 
the  Count)  I  have  never  heard  of  such  tyranny  ! 

Count.  Well,  since  she  will  not  speak,  I  mean  to  see 
her,  dressed  or  undressed. 

Countess  (placing  herself  before  the  door).  Anywhere 
else  I  should.be  powerless  to  prevent  it,  but  in  my  own 
apartment  I  should  think  .   .   . 

Count.  I  am  determined  this  instant  to  see  who  this 
mysterious  Suzanne  can  be.  To  ask  you  for  the  key 
would,  I  suppose,  be  useless,  but  it  will  be  an  easy  matter 
to  break  open  this  light  door.     Hi  !   somebody  ! 

253 


Figaro  :   The  Life  of  Beaumarchais 

Countess.  What  can  you  be  thinking  about,  creating 
a  scandal  before  the  servants  !  You  will  make  yourself 
the  laughing-stock  of  the  castle  ! 

Count.  Very  well,  madam  ;  in  fact,  I  can  do  it  myself. 
I  will  just  get  the  necessary  tools,  but  to  make  sure  that 
everything  remains  as  it  is,  you  will  perhaps  do  me  the 
favour  of  coming  with  me,  without  scandal  and  without 
noise,  since  you  object  to  them  so  much  !  I  take  it  you 
will  not  refuse  such  a  simple  request. 

Countess.     Ah,  sir  !    who  dreams  of  crossing  you  ? 

Count.  Ah  !  I  forgot  the  door  leading  to  your  women's 
apartments  ;  that  also  must  be  shut  in  order  that  you 
may  be  fulty  vindicated. 

He  locks  the  outer  door  and  removes  the  key. 

Countess  (aside).  Good  heavens  !  What  fatal  im- 
prudence ! 

Count  (coming  back  to  her).  Now  the  room  is  locked, 
I  beg  you  to  take  my  arm,  and  as  for  this  Suzanne  in  the 
boudoir,  she  must  have  the  goodness  to  await  my  return. 

Countess.  Really,  sir,  this  is  the  most  odious  treat- 
ment ! 

The  Count  leads  her  away  and  locks  the  door. 

During  their  absence  Cherubin  opens  the  door  and 
Suzanne  takes  his  place  in  the  boudoir,  whereupon  he 
jumps  out  of  the  window  into  the  garden. 

On  his  return  with  his  wife,  the  Count  warns  her  as  to 
the  consequences  of  her  refusal  to  unlock  the  door.  She 
expostulates  with  him  in  vain,  and  he  prepares  to  break 
down  the  partition. 

Countess  (frightened).  Oh  !  sir,  I  implore  you  to  listen 
to  me  calmly  ! 

Count.     Then  it  is  not  Suzanne  ! 

Countess  (timidly).  Neither,  at  any  rate,  is  it  a 
person  .  .  .  whom  you  have  any  reason  to  fear  ...  we 
were  preparing  a  little  practical  joke  .  .  .  quite  an  inno- 
cent affair,  truly,  for  this  evening  .  .  .  and  I  swear  to 
you 

Count.     And  you  swear  to  me  ? 

Countess.  That  neither  of  us  had  the  least  intention 
of  offending  you. 

Count.     Neither  of  3^ou  !     Then  it  is  a  man  ! 

Countess.     A  child,  sir. 

354 


**The  Marriage  of  Figaro" 

Count.     Well,  who  is  it  ? 

Countess.     I  hardly  dare  name  him.  .  .  . 

Count.     I'll  kill  him. 

Countess.     Oh,  heaven  ! 

Count.     Speak  ! 

Countess.     Little  .  .  .  Cherubin  ! 

Count.  Ch6rubin,  the  insolent  fellow  !  That  explains 
my  suspicions  and  the  note. 

Countess  (joining  her  hands).  Ah,  sir  !  do  not 
think  .  .  . 

He  refuses  to  be  appeased.  The  Countess,  thereupon, 
confesses  everything,  and  implores  him  to  moderate  his 
anger  and  not  to  put  a  wrong  construction  on  an  innocent 
but  imprudent  frolic,  and  warns  him  that  he  will  find 
Cherubin  half  undressed.  This  still  further  infuriates 
her  husband,  and  on  her  handing  him  the  key  he  opens 
the  door  and  finds  Suzanne. 

Suzanne  (coming  out,  laughing).  Kill  him  !  Why 
don't  you  kill  that  cursed  page  ? 

Count  (aside).  What  a  mess!  (looking  at  the  Countess). 
And  you,  too,  are  pretending  to  be  astonished.  But 
perhaps  she  is  not  alone.     (He  goes  inside.) 

Suzanne  takes  advantage  of  his  momentary  absence 
to  urge  her  mistress  to  calm  herself,  and  tells  her  that  the 
page  has  escaped.  The  Count  returns,  looking  very  con- 
fused, and  after  a  short  silence,  admits  : 

There  is  nobody  there.  This  time  I  am  wrong.  .  .  . 
Madam  .  .  .  You  are  an  excellent  comedienne. 

Suzanne  (gaily).  And  what  about  me,  my  lord  ? 
(The  Countess,  seeking  to  master  her  nerves,  remains 
silent,  her  handkerchief  pressed  to  her  mouth.) 

Count  (approaching).     Were  you  really  joking,  madam  ? 

Countess  (slightly  recovering  herself).  And  why  not, 
sir  ? 

Count.  What  a  cruel  jest  !  What  can  have  been  your 
motive  ?  .  .  . 

Countess  (gradually  regaining  her  self-control).  Does 
your  treatment  of  me  deserve  any  pity  ? 

Count.     But  to  trifle  about  things  touching  our  honour  ! 

Countess.  Did  I  marry  you  to  be  constantly  the 
victim  of  neglect  and  jealousy  ? 

Count.     But  this  is  carrying  things  too  far  ! 

355 


Figaro  :   The  Life  of  Beaumarchais 

Suzanne.  What  if  my  lady  had  let  you  call  the 
servants  ? 

Count.  You  are  right  ;  it  is  for  me  to  humble  myself. 
.  .  .  Forgive  me,  I  am  .  .  . 

Suzanne.  You  must  admit,  my  lord,  that  you  rather 
deserved  it  !  .  .  . 

Count.  Why  did  you  not  come  out  when  I  called  you, 
cruel  girl  ? 

Suzanne.  I  was  dressing  myself  as  quickly  as  I  could 
with  the  aid  of  pins  ;  .  .  .  and  then  my  lady  had  very 
good  reason  to  forbid  me. 

Count.  Instead  of  reminding  me  of  my  offence,  help 
me  rather  to  appease  her. 

Countess.  No,  sir,  such  an  outrage  is  unpardonable. 
I  shall  retire  into  a  convent.  ...  I  see  only  too  well 
that  it  is  more  than  time  ! 

Count.     Could  you  do  such  a  thing  without  regret  ? 

Suzanne.  For  my  part,  I  am  sure  that  the  day  of 
your  going  would  be  the  eve  of  tears. 

Countess.  Even  if  that  is  so,  Suzanne,  I  would  rather 
regret  it  than  incur  the  disgrace  of  forgiving  him  ;  he  has 
offended  me  too  much. 

Count.     Rosine  ! 

Countess.  I  am  no  longer  the  Rosine  whom  you 
pursued  so  ardently  !  I  am  the  unhappy  Countess  Alma- 
viva,  the  sad,  neglected  wife  whom  you  no  longer  love. 

Suzanne.     My  lady  ! 

Count.     For  pity's  sake  ! 

Countess.     You  had  none  for  me. 

Count.     But  that  note.  ...  It  turned  my  brain  ! 

Countess.     It  was  written  without  my  consent. 

Count.     You  knew  about  it  ? 

Countess.     It  was  that  foolhardy  Figaro. 

Count.     He  had  a  finger  in  it  ? 

Countess.     It  was  he  who  gave  it  to  Basile. 

Count.  He  told  me  he  got  it  from  a  peasant.  Oh  ! 
the  lying  blackmailer  !  The  double-dealing  rascal  !  You 
shall  pay  for  everybody  ! 

Countess.  You  ask  forgiveness  for  yourself  and  refuse 
it  to  others  ;  just  like  a  man  !  Ah  !  if  ever  I  consented 
to  pardon  you  because  of  this  note  which  caused  you  to 
offend,  I  should  certainly  stipulate  for  a  general  amnesty, 

256 


**The  Marriage  of  Figaro  " 

Count.  With  all  my  heart,  Countess.  But  how  can  I 
atone  for  such  a  humiliating  offence  ? 

Countess  (rising).     It  was  so  for  both  of  us. 

Count.  Oh,  say  rather  for  me  alone  !  But  I  cannot 
yet  understand  how  women  so  easily  adapt  their  tone  and 
bearing  to  the  circumstances.  You  blushed,  you  wept, 
your  face  was  haggard.  ...  On  my  honour,  it  is  so 
still. 

Countess  (with  a  forced  smile).  I  was  flushed  ... 
with  resentment  at  your  suspicions.  But  are  men  sensitive 
enough  to  distinguish  between  righteous  indignation  and 
the  confusion  arising  from  a  just  accusation  ? 

Count.  And  the  page  in  disordered  clothing,  with 
hardly  anything  on. 

Countess  (pointing  to  Suzanne).  There  he  is.  Would 
you  rather  it  had  been  the  other  ?  You  do  not,  as  a  rule, 
object  to  meeting  this  one. 

Count  (laughing  outright).  And  those  prayers,  and 
feigned  tears.   .  .  . 

Countess.  You  make  me  laugh,  and  I  am  scarcely 
in  the  mood  for  it. 

Count.  We  rather  fancy  ourselves  in  politics,  but  we 
are  mere  children  at  it.  It  is  you,  madam,  whom  the 
King  ought  to  send  as  his  ambassador  to  London  !  In 
order  to  succeed  so  completely  your  sex  must  have  made 
the  most  exhaustive  study  of  the  art  of  disguising  your 
feelings. 

Countess.     It  is  you  who  force  us  to  do  so. 

Suzanne.  Make  us  prisoners  on  parole,  and  see  what 
honourable  creatures  we  are  ! 

Countess.  Let  us  drop  the  subject.  Count.  Perhaps 
I  went  too  far.  But  my  indulgence  in  such  a  serious  matter 
ought  at  least  to  assure  me  of  yours. 

Count.     But  you  will  repeat  that  you  forgive  me  ? 

Countess.     Did  I  say  so,  Suzon  ? 

Suzanne.     I  did  not  hear  it,  my  lady. 

Count.     Oh,  then,  do  say  it  ! 

Countess.     Do  you  deserve  it,  ungrateful  one  ? 

Count.     Yes,  by  my  repentance. 

Suzanne.  Fancy  suspecting  that  there  was  a  man  in 
my  lady's  boudoir  ! 

Count.     She  has  punished  me  so  severely 

257  17 


Figaro  :    The  Life  of  Beaumarchais 

Suzanne.  And  then,  not  believe  her  when  she  told  you 
it  was  her  maid  ! 

Count.     Rosine,  are  you  without  mercy  ? 

Countess.  Oh,  Suzon  !  how  weak  I  am  !  What  an 
example  I  am  giving  you  !  (Holding  out  her  hand  to  the 
Count.)     No  one  will  evermore  believe  in  a  woman's  anger. 

Suzanne.  Yes,  indeed,  my  lady,  it  always  comes  to 
this  in  the  end.  (The  Count  ardently  kisses  his  wife's 
hand.) 

Figaro  now  comes  running  in  completely  out  of  breath. 

Figaro  (panting).  They  told  me  my  lady  was  unwell. 
...  I  hurried  here  as  fast  as  I  could.  ...  I  am  happy 
to  see  that  there  is  nothins^  the  matter. 

Count  (dryly).     You  are  very  attentive  ! 

Figaro.  It  is  my  duty  to  be  so.  But  since  there  is 
nothing  amiss,  my  lord,  your  vassals  of  both  sexes  are 
waiting  for  permission  to  accompany  me  in  leading  in  my 
bride.  .   .   . 

Count.  But  who  will  there  be  to  look  after  the  Countess 
at  the  castle  ? 

Figaro.     To  look  after  her  !     She  is  not  ill. 

Count.  No,  but  since  the  man  who  was  to  entertain 
her  has  not  come. 

Figaro.     Which  man  ? 

Count.  The  man  referred  to  in  the  note  you  gave 
Basile. 

Figaro.     Who  said  so  ? 

Count.  Even  if  I  had  no  other  means  of  finding  out, 
you  rascal,  your  face  proves  that  you  are  lying  ! 

Figaro.  If  that  is  so,  it  is  not  I  who  am  lying  :  it  is 
my  face. 

Suzanne.  It  is  no  use,  my  poor  Figaro.  You  need  not 
waste  your  breath  :  we  have  confessed  everything. 

Figaro.  Confessed  what  ?  You  treat  me  as  though  I 
were  another  Basile. 

Suzanne.  That  you  wrote  the  note  to  make  my  lord 
believe,  when  he  came  in  just  now,  that  the  little  page  was 
in  the  boudoir  when  it  was  I. 

Count.     What  have  you  to  say  to  that  ? 

Countess.  Further  concealment  is  useless,  Figaro. 
The  jest  is  consummated. 

258 


**The  Marriage  of  Figaro" 

Figaro  (trying  to  guess).  The  jest  is  .  .  .  consum- 
mated ? 

Count.  Yes,  consummated  What  have  you  got  to 
say  ? 

Figaro.  I  ?  .  .  .  Well,  all  I  can  say  is,  that  I  wish  as 
much  could  be  said  of  my  marriage  ! — and  if  you  will 
give  the  order  .  .  . 

Count.     So  you  admit  writing  the  note  ? 

Figaro.  Since  my  lady  will  have  it  so,  and  Suzanne 
will  have  it  so,  and  you  yourself  will  have  it  so,  I  suppose 
I  also  must  have  it  so  ]  but  if  I  were  in  your  place,  my 
lord,  I  would  not  believe  a  single  word  we  have  been 
telling  you. 

Count.  Always  lying  against  the  evidence  ;  you  will 
end  by  making  me  lose  my  temper. 

Countess  (laughing).  The  poor  fellow.  Why  should 
you  wish  him  to  tell  the  truth  for  once,  my  lord  ? 

Meanwhile,  Figaro,  unobserved,  tells  Suzanne  that  the 
page  is  safe.  The  Countess  now  begs  her  husband  to  give 
the  order  for  the  ceremony  to  begin.  At  this  moment  the 
tippling  gardener,  Antonio,  comes  to  complain  that  he 
saw  a  man  jump  out  of  the  window  on  to  his  flower-beds. 
Figaro  tries  to  turn  the  conversation,  and  accuses  him  of 
being  drunk,  and  the  Countess  remarks  that  she  cannot 
understand  people  drinking  when  they  are  not  thirsty. 
Antonio  replies  that  "  to  drink  without  thirst  and  to  make 
love  at  all  seasons  are  the  only  things  which  distinguish 
us  from  the  other  animals."  The  Count  interrupts, 
threatening,  if  he  will  not  give  him  direct  answers,  to  dis- 
miss him.  "  Do  you  think  I  would  go  ?  "  asks  Antonio  ; 
"if  you  have  not  enough  of  this  "  (touching  his  forehead) 
"  to  keep  a  good  servant,  I  am  not  such  a  fool  as  to  dismiss 
a  good  master."  Figaro  here  declares  that  it  was  he  who 
was  in  Suzanne's  room  when  he  heard  the  Count  coming, 
and  was  so  frightened  that  he  jumped  out  of  the  window. 

"  Since  it  was  you,"  says  Antonio,  "  this  piece  of  paper 
must  belong  to  you."  But  before  Figaro  can  take  the 
note  the  Count  snatches  it  away,  and,  turning  to  his  valet, 
says  :  "  Your  fright  cannot  have  made  you  forget  the 
contents  of  this  document,  nor  will  it  explain  how  you 
came  to  have  it  in  your  pocket."     In  order  to  gain  time, 

259  17* 


Figaro  :    The  Life  of  Beaumarchais 

Figaro  pretends  to  turn  out  his  pockets.  Unobserved, 
the  Countess  tells  Suzanne  that  it  must  be  Cherubin's 
commission,  and  she  secretly  passes  on  the  information  to 
Figaro. 

Count.  Come,  my  man  of  expedients,  can  you  not 
guess  ? 

Figaro.  Oh  !  yes,  it  is  that  unhappy  boy's  commission, 
which  he  handed  to  me,  and  I  forgot  to  return  to  him. 
What  an  absent-minded  fellow  I  am  !  Whatever  will  he 
do  without  his  commission.     I  must  run  after  him.  .  .  . 

Count.     Why  did  he  give  it  to  you  ? 

Figaro  (embarrassed).  He  .  .  .  wanted  something  done 
to  it. 

Count.     There  is  nothing  the  matter  with  it. 

Countess  (aside  to  Suzanne,  who  passes  it  on  to  Figaro). 
It  has  no  seal. 

Count.     Why  do  you  not  answer  ? 

Figaro.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  it  lacks  only  a  small 
detail,  but  they  say  it  is  usually  done. 

Count.     Usually  done  !     What  is  usually  done  ? 

Figaro.  To  fix  your  seal — but  perhaps  it  is  hardly 
worth  while. 

Count  (angrily  crumpling  up  the  document).  Oh  !  I 
see  that  I  am  fated  to  be  left  in  ignorance  of  everything. 
(Aside.)  It  is  this  fellow  Figaro  who  manages  them  all  ; 
but,  zounds  !  I'll  have  my  revenge  on  him  !  (He  walks 
quickly  away.) 

Figaro  (disappointed,  stops  him).  Please  do  not  go 
without  ordering  my  marriage. 

Marceline  now  enters  to  demand  that  her  case  against 
Figaro  be  tried  that  very  day,  and  Almaviva,  well  pleased, 
orders  a  chamber  to  be  prepared  for  that  purpose.  Mean- 
while, the  Countess,  in  the  hope  of  overcoming  her  hus- 
band's secret  resistance  to  Suzanne's  marriage,  suggests 
that  the  latter  shall  pretend  to  agree  to  the  Count's  wishes, 
and  that  she  herself,  disguised  in  Suzanne's  clothes,  shall 
keep  the  appointment. 

In  the  third  act  the  Count  seeks  to  discover  how  much 
Figaro  suspects  of  his  designs  upon  his  bride. 

Count.     Why  were  you  so  long  in  answering  my  call  ? 
260 


**The  Marriage  of  Figaro  *' 

Figaro  (pretending  to  adjust  his  clothes).  I  soiled  my 
clothes  when  I  jumped  into  the  garden  :   I  was  changing. 

Count.     Does  it  take  you  an  hour  ? 

Figaro.     It  takes  time. 

Count.  The  servants  in  this  place  .  .  .  take  longer 
to  dress  than  their  masters. 

Figaro.  That  is  because  they  have  no  valets  to  help 
them. 

Count.  Even  now  I  cannot  understand  what  made  you 
needlessly  incur  the  risk  of  accident  by  throwing  youself  .  .  . 

Figaro.  Risk  !  you  might  say  that  I  was  swallowed 
alive !  .  .  . 

Count.  Insidious  fellow  !  Trying  to  put  me  on  the 
wrong  scent.  You  well  know  that  it  is  not  the  risk  that 
worries  me,  but  the  motive. 

Figaro.  On  false  information,  you  came  rushing  in, 
furiously  angry,  overturning  everything,  like  the  Morena  in 
flood  ;  you  were  looking  for  a  man  and  determined  to  find 
him,  breaking  doors  and  forcing  locks  ;  by  chance  I  hap- 
pened to  be  there — how  was  I  to  know  but  that  in  your 
rage 

Count.     You  might  have  fled  by  the  staircase. 

Figaro.     Yes,  for  you  to  catch  me  in  the  corridor. 

Count  (angrily).  In  the  corridor  !  (Aside)  I  am  losing 
my  temper,  and  shall  defeat  my  own  purposes. 

Figaro  (aside).  I  see  what  he  is  after,  and  must  play 
cautiously. 

Count  (more  calmly).  That  is  not  what  I  intended  to 
say  ;  we  will  leave  that.  I  had  .  .  .  yes,  I  had  some 
intention  of  taking  you  with  me  to  London  as  a  Special 
Messenger  .  .  .  but  upon  further  reflection 

Figaro.     My  lord  has  changed  his  mind  ? 

Count.     In  the  first  place,  you  do  not  know  English. 

Figaro.     I  know  God-dam. 

Count.     What  do  you  mean  ? 

Figaro.     I  say,  I  know  God-dam. 

Count.     Well  ? 

Figaro.  English  is  a  splendid  language  :  a  little  goes 
a  long  way.  A  God-dam  in  England  will  carry  you  any- 
where. Would  you  like  to  eat  a  good  fat  pullet  ;  you  have 
only  to  step  into  a  tavern,  and  make  this  gesture  to  the 
waiter  (he  imitates  the  motion  of  turning  a  spit),  God-dam ! 

261 


Figaro  :    The  Life  of  Beaumarchais 

they  bring  you  a  hunch  of  salt  beef  without  bread.  It  is 
admirable  !  Do  you  fancy  a  glass  of  excellent  Burgundy, 
all  you  need  do  is  (he  imitates  the  noise  of  drawing  a  cork), 
God-dam  !  they  serve  you  with  a  fine  pewter  mug  full  of 
beer,  frothing  over  the  brim  !  What  a  comfort !  Should 
you  meet  one  of  those  pretty  creatures,  trotting  along  with 
her  eyes  on  the  pavement,  her  elbows  pressed  well  back, 
and  swaying  slightly  at  the  hips,  you  press  your  fingers 
gently  together  on  your  mouth — God-dam  !  she  fetches 
you  a  clout  like  a  porter  !  A  sure  proof  that  she  under- 
stands !  To  be  quite  truthful,  the  Enghsh  do  add  a  few 
other  words  here  and  there,  but  it  is  easy  to  see  that  God- 
dam is  the  basis  of  their  language,  and  if  my  lord  has  no 
other  motive  for  leaving  me  behind  in  Spain  .  .  . 

Count  (aside).  He  wants  to  go  to  London.  She  has 
told  him  nothing. 

Figaro  (aside).  He  thinks  I  know  nothing  ;  give  him 
the  line  for  awhile. 

Count.  What  was  the  Countess's  motive  in  playing  me 
such  a  trick  ? 

Figaro.  Faith  !  my  lord,  you  know  that  better  than 
I  do! 

Count.  I  forestall  her  wishes  in  every  way  and  load  her 
with  presents. 

Figaro.  You  do,  but  you  are  unfaithful  to  her.  Wliat 
does  one  care  for  the  superfluous  if  one  is  deprived  of  the 
necessary  ? 

Count,     At  one  time  you  used  to  tell  m.e  everything, 

Figaro.     And  now  I  hide  nothing  from  you. 

Count.  How  much  did  the  Countess  give  you  for  this 
precious  transaction  ? 

Figaro.  How  much  did  you  give  me  for  getting  her  out 
of  the  doctor's  hands.  Look  here,  my  lord,  you  ought  not 
to  humihate  the  man  who  serves  you  so  well,  for  fear  of 
turning  him  into  a  worthless  valet. 

Count.  How  is  it  that  there  is  always  something 
equivocal  about  everything  you  do  ? 

Figaro.  Suspicious  people  always  find  reasons  for 
doubting  others. 

Count.     But  you  have  a  villainous  reputation, 

Figaro.  What  if  I  am  better  than  my  reputation  ? 
Are  there  many  noblemen  who  could  say  as  much  ? 

262 


**The  Marriage  of  Figaro  ** 

Count.  I  have  seen  you  a  hundred  times  on  the  road 
to  fortune,  but  never  going  straight. 

Figaro.  What  would  you  have  ?  Down  there  amongst 
the  crowd,  everybody  wants  to  get  out  of  it  quickly  ;  they 
elbow,  shove  and  trample  upon  each  other  ;  a  few  get  on, 
the  others  are  crushed.  As  for  me,  I  have  had  enough  of 
it  :   I  give  it  up. 

Count.  What,  making  your  fortune  ?  (Aside)  Here 
is  something  new. 

Figaro  (aside).  Now  it  is  my  turn.  (Aloud)  Your 
Excellency  has  honoured  me  with  the  care  of  his  castle ;  it 
is  a  ^^ery  fine  post  ;  certainly  I  should  not  be  the  eagerly 
awaited  bearer  of  all  the  most  interesting  news  of  the  day, 
but  on  the  other  hand,  happy  with  my  wife  in  the  heart  of 
Andalusia.  .  .  . 

Count.  Wliat  is  to  prevent  you  from  bringing  her  with 
you  to  London  ? 

Figaro.  I  should  have  to  leave  her  so  often  that  I 
should  soon  be  sick  of  married  life.  A 

Count.  With  your  character  and  intelligence  you 
would  soon  make  your  way  in  the  Government  offices. 

Figaro.  Intelligence  ?  My  lord  is  surely  poking  fun 
at  me  !  It  is  only  the  cringing  mediocrity  who  gets  on 
there  ! 

Count.  All  you  want  is  to  study  politics  a  little  under 
my  guidance. 

Figaro.     I  know  politics  already. 

Count.  As  you  know  English  :  the  basis  of  the  lan- 
guage ! 

Figaro.  Yes,  if  that  is  anything  to  boast  about.  To 
pretend  to  be  ignorant  of  what  you  know,  to  know  what 
you  are  ignorant  of,  to  comprehend  what  you  do  not 
understand,  to  pretend  to  be  able  to  do  the  impossible,  to 
keep  the  great  secret  that  there  is  nothing  to  conceal,  to 
deny  your  door  to  everybody  in  order  to  trim  your  pens,  to 
look  deep  when  you  are  only  empty  and  hollow,  to  pretend 
to  be  somebody,  to  subsidize  spies  and  to  pension  traitors, 
to  intercept  and  open  other  people's  letters,  and  to  justify 
any  dirty  trick  by  the  importance  of  the  object  in  view — 
that  is  the  beginning  and  the  end  of  pohtics,  or  I  am  a 
dead  man  ! 

Count.     That  is  intrigue  which  you  have  defined. 
263 


Figaro  :    The  Life  of  Beaumarchais 

Figaro.  Intrigue,  politics — as  you  will ;  but  in  my 
opinion  they  are  pretty  much  the  same  thing.  Anybody 
is  welcome  to  them  so  far  as  I  am  concerned.  '  J'aime 
mieux  ma  mie,  0  gue,  as  the  good  king  says  in  his  song.* 

Count  (aside).  He  wants  to  stay.  Suzanne  has  be- 
trayed me. 

Figaro  (aside).  Now  I  am  paying  him  back  in  his  own 
coin. 

Count.  So  you  hope  to  win  your  case  against  Mar- 
cehne  ? 

Figaro.  Would  you  make  it  a  crime  in  me  to  reject 
the  elderly  woman,  when  Your  Excellency  permits  himself 
to  snap  up  all  the  young  ones  ? 

Count  (mocking).  In  the  seat  of  judgment  the  magis- 
trate forgets  his  own  interests,  he  concerns  himself  solely 
with  the  administration  of  the  law. 

Figaro.  Indulgent  to  the  great  and  hard  on  the 
humble.   .  .  . 

Count.     Do  you  think  I  am  joking  ? 

Figaro.  Who  knows,  my  lord  ?  Time  will  tell,  that 
is  always  truthful.  Time  alone  will  reveal  who  wishes  me 
well  and  who  wishes  me  ill. 

Count  (aside).  I  see  that  he  has  been  told  everything  ; 
he  shall  marry  the  duenna. 

Figaro  (aside).  He  has  been  trying  to  trap  me  :  what 
has  he  learnt  ? 

WTien  Almaviva  is  alone,  Suzanne  comes  running  in, 
breathless. 

Suzanne.     My  lord  .  .  .  forgive  me,  my  lord  ! 

Count  (crossly).     What  is  it,  miss  ? 

Suzanne.     You  are  angry  with  me. 

Count.     You  want  something,  apparently. 

Suzanne.  My  mistress  has  the  vapours.  I  ran  to  beg 
you  to  lend  us  your  smelling-salts.  I  will  bring  the  bottle 
back  in  a  moment. 

Count  (giving  it  to  her).  No,  keep  it  for  yourself  ;  you 
will  want  it  before  long. 

Suzanne.  Just  as  if  women  in  my  station  have  vapours  ! 
Only  people  of  position  have  vapours,  it  is  only  caught  in 
boudoirs. 

*  The  refrain  of  the  famous  love  song  of  Henri  IV. 
264 


**The  Marriage  of  Figaro  *' 

Count.  A  girl  very  much  in  love  who  loses  her  in- 
tended .  .  . 

Suzanne.  By  paying  Marceline  with  the  dowry  you 
promised  me.   .  .  . 

Count.     Which  I  promised  you,  I  ? 

Suzanne  (looking  down).  I  thought  I  heard  you  say  so, 
my  lord. 

Count.     Yes,  if  you  agreed  to  hear  me  yourself. 

Suzanne  (with  lowered  eyes).  Is  it  not  my  duty  to 
hsten  to  Your  Excellency  ? 

Count.  Cruel  girl  ?  Why  did  you  not  say  so 
before  ? 

Suzanne.     Is  it  ever  too  late  to  tell  the  truth  ? 

Count.     You  promise  to  be  in  the  garden  at  dusk  ? 

Suzanne.     Do  I  not  take  the  air  there  every  evening  ? 

Count.     You  treated  me  so  harshly  this  morning  ! 

Suzanne.  This  morning  ?  With  the  page  behind  the 
chair  ? 

Count.  You  are  quite  right.  I  was  forgetting.  But 
why  this  obstinate  refusal  when  Basile  on  my  behalf  .  .  .  ? 

Suzanne.  What  necessity  was  there  for  such  a  person 
as  Basile  ? 

Count.  You  are  always  right.  Nevertheless,  there  is  a 
certain  Figaro,  to  whom  I  fear  you  tell  everything. 

Suzanne.  Yes,  to  be  sure  !  I  tell  him  everything — 
except  what  must  be  kept  from  him. 

Count  (laughing).  Oh  !  charming  !  And  you  promise 
me  ?  If  you  break  your  word — let  us  understand  each 
other,  my  dear — and  there  is  no  meeting,  there  will  be  no 
dowry  and  no  marriage. 

Suzanne  (curtsying).  On  the  other  hand,  no  marriage, 
no  seignorial  right,  my  lord. 

Count.  Where  did  she  learn  to  say  such  things  ? 
Upon  my  word,  I  can  see  myself  raving  about  her  !  Is  not 
your  mistress  waiting  for  the  smelling-salts  ? 

Suzanne  (laughing  and  handing  back  the  phial).  How 
could  I  come  to  speak  to  you  without  a  pretext  ? 

Count  (trying  to  embrace  her).     Dehcious  creature  ! 

Suzanne  (escaping).     There  is  somebody  coming. 

Count  (aside).     She  is  mine  !     (He  hurries  out.) 

Suzanne.  Now  we  must  be  quick  and  tell  my  lady  all 
about  it. 

365 


Figaro  :   The  Life  of  Beaumarchais 

Here  Figaro  enters. 

Figaro.  Suzanne  !  Suzanne  !  Where  are  you  running 
so  quickly,  after  leaving  my  lord  ? 

Suzanne.  Now  you  can  go  to  law  as  much  as  you  hke  ; 
you  have  just  won  your  case.     (She  runs  off.) 

Figaro  (following  her).  Here !  wait  a  minute !  I 
say  ! 

Unfortunately,  Almaviva  overhears  their  words,  and 
promises  to  punish  them  "  with  a  good,  just  sentence." 
He  determines  to  encourage  Antonio,  who,  he  knows, 
despises  Figaro,  to  refuse  to  let  his  niece,  Suzanne,  marry 
him.  "  In  the  vast  field  of  intrigue,"  he  reflects,  ''  you  must 
learn  how  to  cultivate  everything,  even  the  vanity  of  a 
fool." 

The  next  scene  is  the  trial,  in  which  the  examining 
magistrate,  Brid'oison,  with  his  formalism,  his  quibbling 
redundancy  and  stammering  imbecility,  provides  most  of 
the  fun.  The  whole  scene  is  rather  obviously  dragged  in,  to 
give  Beaumarchais  an  opportunity  of  ridiculing  his  judges 
and  satirizing  the  anomalies  of  the  law  and  judicial  pro- 
cedure. The  author  took  care  that  there  should  be  no 
doubt  in  the  minds  of  his  contemporaries  as  to  the  original 
of  this  preposterous  magistrate,  and  all  at  once  recognized 
that  he  was  inviting  them  to  laugh  at  Goezman.  An 
examination  of  the  first  draft  of  the  play  reveals  the  fact 
that  Brid'oison  was  originally  named  "  Gusman,"  but  the 
allusion  was  afterwards  made  less  conspicuous  by  trans- 
ferring it  from  his  surname  to  his  Christian  name.  It  was 
in  this  way,  indeed,  that  Goezman' s  name  was  spelt  when 
it  figured  in  the  fatal  list  of  the  Revolutionary  Tribunal. 

Judgment  goes  against  Figaro  and  he  is  condemned  to 
pay  Marceline  2,000  piastres  or  marry  her  forthwith.  But 
before  the  audience  ends  it  is  discovered,  much  to  Almaviva's 
disgust,  that  Figaro  is  in  reality  the  long-lost  son  of  Mar- 
celine and  Bartholo. 

Meanwhile  the  Countess  and  Suzanne  concoct  a  letter 
to  the  Count,  making  an  appointment  in  the  garden  at 
night  for  the  maid,  which  the  mistress  intends  to  keep. 

Fanchette  and  the  village  girls  (among  whom  is  Cherubin 
266 


**The  Marriage  of  Figaro" 

in  disguise)  now  enter,  bearing  flowers  for  the  Countess, 
and  Antonio,  before  the  whole  company,  unmasks  the  page. 
The  Countess  does  her  best  to  explain  the  situation,  but  the 
Count  angrily  announces  his  intention  of  punishing  him 
for  his  disobedience.  But  at  this  threat  Fanchette  naively 
exclaims  : 

"  Oh  !  listen  to  me,  my  lord.  Whenever  you  came  to 
embrace  me  you  always  said,  you  know,  '  if  you  will  love 
me,  my  little  Fanchette,  I  will  give  you  whatever  you 
like.'  " 

Count.     Did  I  say  that  ? 

Fanchette.  Yes,  my  lord.  Instead  of  punishing 
Cherubin,  marry  him  to  me,  and  I  will  love  you  ever  so 
much. 

Count  (aside).     Bewitched  by  a  page  ! 

Countess.  Well,  sir,  it  is  now  your  turn.  This  child's 
naive  confession  proves  two  things  :  that  if  I  cause  you 
anxiety  it  is  always  without  intending  to  do  so,  whilst  you 
do  all  you  can  to  increase  and  justify  mine. 

The  Count  is  utterly  disconcerted.  The  trumpet  now 
sounds  for  the  fete  to  begin,  and  Figaro  escapes  with 
Suzanne  and  the  girls.  Almaviva  unfastens  Suzanne's 
letter,  and  in  doing  so  tears  his  finger  on  the  pin  which 
holds  it  together.  On  reading  the  letter  he  sees  that  he  is 
requested  to  return  the  pin  as  a  sign  that  he  has  understood 
the  message.  Catching  sight  of  Fanchette,  he  tells  her  to 
give  the  pin  to  her  cousin.  Whilst  she  is  looking  for 
Suzanne  she  encounters  Figaro,  and  on  being  questioned 
by  him,  unwittingly  convinces  him  that  his  bride  has 
betrayed  him. 

The  scene  of  the  fifth  act  is  laid,  at  night,  in  the  chestnut 
grove  in  the  park,  the  place  fixed  for  Suzanne's  pretended 
rendezvous  with  the  Count. 

The  heart-broken  Figaro  paces  to  and  fro,  talking  to 
himself  :  "  O  woman  !  woman  !  woman  !  "  he  cries, 
"  frail  and  deceitful  creature  ;  there  is  not  a  created  animal 
that  can  help  following  its  instinct  ;  is  it  yours  to  deceive  ? 
.  .  .  After  having  obstinately  refused  when  I  pressed  her 
in  the  presence  of  her  mistress,  the  moment  she  has  given 
me  her  word — in  the  very  place  where  the  ceremony  was 
to  take  place.  ...  He  laughed  as  he  read  it,  the  traitor  ! 

267 


Figaro  :    The  Life  of  Beaumarchais 

And  there  stood  I  like  a  noodle  !  .  .  .  No,  my  lord  !  you 
shall  not  have  her  !  .  ,  .  You  shall  not  have  her  !  Because 
you  are  a  great  nobleman  you  think  you  are  a  great 
genius  !  .  .  .  Nobility,  riches,  rank,  appointments  make 
people  so  proud  !  What  have  you  done  to  deserve  all 
these  good  things  ?  You  have  given  yourself  the  trouble 
of  being  born,  and  nothing  more  !  Apart  from  that,  quite 
an  ordinary  sort  of  man  !  While  I,  lost  in  the  obscure 
crowd,  's death  !  I  have  had  to  display  more  sagacity  and 
ingenuity  merely  to  exist  than  have  been  exercised  in 
governing  all  the  kingdoms  of  Spain  during  the  last  hun- 
dred years  !  .  .  .  Was  there  ever  such  a  queer  fate  as 
mine  ?  Son  of  I  know  not  whom  ;  stolen  by  bandits  ; 
brought  up  among  outlaws,  I  became  disgusted  with  their 
ways,  and  tried  to  lead  an  honest  life  ;  but  was  everywhere 
repulsed.  I  learnt  chemistry,  pharmacy,  surgery,  yet  all 
the  influence  of  a  great  nobleman  barely  succeeded  in 
putting  a  veterinary  surgeon's  lancet  in  my  hand  !  .  .  . 
Tired  of  teasing  sick  animals,  I  thought  I  would  try  some- 
thing quite  different,  so  I  threw  myself  whole-heartedly 
into  the  theatre  :  I  should  have  done  better  to  tie  a  mill- 
stone about  my  neck  !  I  wrote  a  comedy  of  the  manners 
of  the  seraglio,  for,  being  a  Spanish  author,  I  thought  I 
might  venture  without  offence  to  make  game  of  Mahomet  : 
at  once  an  envoy,  from  I  know  not  where,  complained  that 
my  verses  were  an  offence  to  the  Subhme  Porte,  to  Persia, 
to  India,  etc. — and  my  comedy  was  utterly  ruined  to 
please  these  Mahometan  princes,  not  one  of  whom,  I  dare 
say,  knew  how  to  read  !  .  .  .  A  public  discussion  arose  on 
the  nature  of  wealth,  and  as  it  is  not  necessary  to  possess 
things  in  order  to  discuss  them,  I  wrote  a  treatise  on  money 
and  its  uses,  and  immediately  I  found  myself  flung  into  a  cab, 
being  carried  off  to  a  dungeon,  where  I  w^as  deprived  of 
liberty  and  hope.  Ah  !  if  only  I  could  get  one  of  these 
great  people  into  my  power  for  a  day  or  two  !  When  once 
the  disgrace  had  soaked  into  him  and  settled  his  pride,  I 
would  tell  him  that  foolish  writings  are  of  importance 
only  where  their  circulation  is  hindered  ;  that  without  the 
liberty  of  criticism  there  can  be  no  praise  worth  having  ; 
that  only  little  people  fear  little  books  !  .  .  .  Tired  of  nourish- 
ing an  obscure  pensioner,  the  authorities  one  day  turned 
me  out  into  the  street,  and  since  it  is  necessary  to  eat  even 

268 


**The  Marriage  of  Figaro  ** 

when  one  is  not  in  prison,  I  again  trimmed  my  pen,  and 
asked  what  was  the  question  of  the  day.  I  was  told  that 
during  my  economic  retreat  there  was  a  new  system  of 
hberty  of  the  press  estabhshed  in  Madrid,  and  provided 
that  I  did  not  write  about  the  Government,  rehgion, 
pohtics,  morahty,  people  in  ofhce,  powerful  corporations, 
the  Opera  or  other  spectacles,  or  anybody  who  had  any- 
thing, I  was  at  liberty  to  print  what  I  chose — after  it  had 
passed  through  the  hands  of  three  or  four  censors.  To 
profit  by  this  sweet  liberty,  I  announced  a  periodical  publi- 
cation, which,  in  order  to  infringe  nobody's  rights,  I  named 
The  Useless  Journal.  Whew  !  at  once  a  thousand  poor 
devils  of  the  press  rose  against  me,  and  I  was  suppressed  ! 
There  was  I  again  without  employment  !  I  was  nearly 
desperate,  when  somebody  proposed  me  for  a  vacancy, 
but  unfortunately  I  was  fully  qualified  to  fill  it.  They 
wanted  an  accountant  :  it  was  a  dancer  who  got  the  job  ! 
The  only  thing  left  for  me  was  to  steal  :  so  I  opened  a  faro 
bank.  Then,  my  word  !  I  supped  in  town,  and  thoroughly 
respectable  gentlefolk  politely  offered  me  their  houses,  on 
the  understanding  that  I  made  over  to  them  three-quarters 
of  the  profits.  I  soon  began  to  understand  that  to  make 
money,  dexterity  is  more  useful  than  knowledge.  But 
since  everybody  around  me  swindled,  whilst  demanding 
that  I  should  remain  honest,  I  was  soon  once  more  reduced 
to  beggary. J  I  was  preparing  to  quit  the  world,  when  a 
beneficent  Deity  called  me  to  my  first  trade.  I  again  took 
up  my  knapsack  and  my  leather,  and  leaving  the  smoke  to 
the  fools  who  nourished  themselves  on  it  and  shame  in  the 
roadway  as  too  heavy  a  burden  for  a  foot-passenger,  I  went 
shaving  from  town  to  town — and  I  lived  without  a  care  in 
the  world.  A  great  gentleman  happened  to  be  in  Seville 
when  I  arrived  there  ;  he  recognized  me  ;  I  was  the  means 
of  winning  for  him  the  lady  of  his  choice  .  .  .  and  now,  as 
a  reward  for  my  services,  he  tries  to  intercept  mine  !  .  .  . 
Why  has  all  this  happened  to  me?  Why  these  things  and 
not  others  ?  Who  has  put  this  upon  me  ?  Compelled  to 
follow  the  path  in  which  I  was  placed  without  my  consent, 
which  I  shall  have  to  leave  against  my  will,  I  have  strewn 
it  with  such  flowers  as  my  gaiety  permitted  ;  I  say  my 
gaiety,  not  knowing  whether  it  is  mine  more  than  the  rest, 
nor  even  what  is  tiiis  /  about  which  I  concern  myself.     An 

269 


Figaro  :   The  Life  of  Beaumarchais 

unformed  conglomeration  of  unknown  parts  ;  a  helpless, 
unintelligent  being,  a  frolicsome  little  animal,  a  young  man 
eager  for  pleasure,  with  every  taste  for  enjoyment,  following 
every  trade  in  order  to  live  ;  master  here,  valet  there,  as  it 
pleased  fortune  !  Ambitious  through  vanity,  laborious 
from  necessity,  but  finding  real  felicity  in  idleness  ;  an 
orator  when  threatened  by  danger,  amusing  myself  now 
with  poetry,  now  with  music,  subj  ect  to  mad  gusts  of  passion. 
I  have  seen  everything,  done  everything,  worn  out  every- 
thing ,  .  .  and  now  disillusion  !  .  .  ,  utter  disillusion  ! 
.  .  .  Suzon,  Suzon,  Suzon  !  how  you  torment  me  !  .  .  .  I 
hear  somebody  coming.   .   .  .  Now  is  the  critical  moment !  " 

The  play  ends  in  a  mad  scene  of  blindman's  buff,  in 
which  the  Count  for  the  third  time  finds  himself  hopelessly 
in  the  wrong,  and  is  reduced  to  crave  his  wife's  forgiveness, 
which  is  graciously  accorded,  whilst  Figaro  is  only  too  happy 
to  have  his  ears  soundly  boxed  by  Suzanne  for  daring  to 
doubt  her. 


270 


CHAPTER   XXVIII 

BEAUMARCHAIS   AND    MIRABEAU 

AS  the  readiest  way  of  getting  themselves  talked  about, 
youthful  aspirants  to  the  honours  of  the  forum 
have  been  known  to  adopt  the  practice  of  involving  some 
eminent  public  man  in  a  controversy,  and  then  seeking  to 
disparage  and  overwhelm  him  and  all  that  he  stands  for, 
in  a  merciless  combat  of  wits.  The  celebrity  of  Beau- 
marchais  at  this  time  caused  him  to  be  singled  out  as  a 
fit  subject  for  such  attentions  by  a  most  redoubtable 
adversary  of  this  type.  A  few  years  before  the  production 
of  The  Marriage  of  Figaro^  two  engineering  experts,  the 
brothers  Perrier,  had  conceived  the  project  of  supplying 
Paris  with  water  drawn  from  the  Seine  by  means  of  a 
steam  pump,  which  they  installed  on  the  heights  of  Chaillot. 
Being  short  of  capital,  they  had  applied  to  Beaumarchais, 
who  had  promptly  financed  the  scheme  and  founded  the 
Paris  Water  Company  for  its  exploitation.  He  had  also 
become  a  director  and  one  of  the  chief  shareholders.  For 
a  few  years  the  shares  fell  considerably  below  par,  but  in 
1785  they  suddenly  recovered  and  began  to  rise  rapidly 
in  value.  Several  bankers,  whose  interests  were  threatened 
by  this  unexpected  turn  of  events,  set  themselves  to  arrest 
the  revival. 

At  this  moment,  Mirabeau,  fresh  from  gaol,  and  in 
his  habitual  state  of  impecuniosity,  happened  to  be  in 
Paris  seeking  an  opening  for  his  talents,  and  eager,  as 
ever,  to  sell  his  pen  to  the  highest  bidder.  His  noisy 
amours,  his  lawsuits  and  his  amazing  adventures  had  won 
him  some  notoriety  in  scandalous  chronicle,  but  otherwise 
he  was  unknown  to  fame.  He  had,  however,  already  done 
a  considerable  amount  of  literary  hack-work  for  the 
financiers   Claviere   and   Panchaud,    the   two   men   most 

271 


Figaro  :    The  Life  of  Beaumarchais 

adversely  affected  by  the  success  of  the  Paris  Water 
Company.  They  suppUed  him  with  tendacious  statistics, 
and  hired  him  to  concoct  a  pamphlet  denying  the  advan- 
tages of  the  scheme,  and  even  boldly  asserting  that  the 
operations  of  the  company  were  against  the  public 
interest. 

When  the  old  Marquis  de  Mirabeau  heard  of  this 
transaction,  he  wrote  of  his  son  :  "  This  gentleman  is 
now  in  the  pay  of  the  speculators  ;  they  use  him  as  one 
uses  an  ill-conditioned,  dangerous  cur,  which  is  set  on  to 
bark  at  the  heels  of  passers-by,  and  is  always  ready  to 
snap  when  bidden." 

Beaumarchais,  as  a  director  and  principal  shareholder 
of  the  company,  thinking  that  it  was  in  the  public  interest 
to  prove  the  contrary  of  Mirabeau' s  assertions,  replied 
to  the  future  orator  in  a  calm  and  reasoned  statement  ; 
but,  after  treating  his  opponent  with  marked  deference 
and  comphmenting  him  on  the  ability  he  had  displayed  in 
making  out  his  case,  he  declared  that  the  author  of  the 
pamphlet  he  was  reviewing  "was  in  the  pay  of  speculators 
known  to  have  the  greatest  interest  in  the  fall  of  the 
market."  He  reminded  his  readers  that  "  novel  enter- 
prises had  at  all  periods  of  history  encountered  strenuous 
opposition,"  and  then,  to  put  the  laugh  on  his  side, 
characteristically  added  :  "  When  the  criticisms  were  very 
bitter  they  were  called  Philippics.  Perhaps  in  the  future 
some  wag  would  call  the  present  ones  by  the  pretty  name 
of  Mirabelles,  as  derived  from  the  Comte  de  Mirabeau,  who 
Mirabilia  fecit."  He  ended  by  begging  the  Comte's  pardon 
in  advance  if  any  expression  had  escaped  him  of  which 
he  disapproved. 

Now,  when  a  man  means  to  be  sarcastic  it  is  futile  to 
introduce  his  cutting  remarks  by  a  conciliatory  preamble 
of  this  kind,  for  it  is  impossible  to  say  offensive  things  in 
an  inoffensive  way.  Such  tactics  can  be  safely  employed 
only  with  a  subordinate,  who  is  in  no  position  to  reply  to 
them.  With  an  equal,  it  is  like  suddenly  lowering  one's 
guard  when  the  engagement  is  at  its  height,  and  to  equals 
and  inferiors  alike  it  is  adding  insult  to  injury. 

Mirabeau  took  full  advantage  of  his  opponent's  mis- 
take. His  reply,  full  of  treacherous  insinuations,  is  a 
bitter   denunciation  of  the  life,  character  and  writings  of 

272 


Gabriel  Honore  Riquetti,  Comte  de  Mirabeau. 

Frori!   a  mezzotint  by  Levachez. 


[To  face  p.  272. 


Beaumarchais  and  Mirabeau 

"  that  mountebank  Beaumarchais,"  as  he  was  pleased  to 
call  him.  In  The  Marriage  of  Figaro,  he  declared,  "  Every 
order  of  the  State,  every  class  of  society,  every  law,  every 
rule  of  life  is  lacerated,  insulted,  outraged."  Then,  turn- 
ing on  its  author,  he  wrote  : 


"  As  for  you,  sir,  who,  by  putting  a  slanderous  inter- 
pretation upon  my  intentions  and  my  motives,  have  forced 
me  to  treat  you  with  a  harshness  which  nature  has  placed 
neither  in  my  heart  nor  mind  ;  you,  whom  I  never  pro- 
voked, and  to  contend  with  whom  would  be  neither  useful 
nor  honourable,  I  advise  you  to  profit  by  the  bitter  lesson 
which  you  have  compelled  me  to  give  you.  Withdraw 
your  unsolicited  compliments,  for  on  no  account  what- 
ever am  I  able  to  reciprocate  them.  Take  back  the  pitiful 
excuses  you  proffer  to  me  ;  withdraw  the  insolent  esteem 
which  you  dare  to  express  to  me  !  Henceforth  aspire  to 
nothing  but  to  deserve  to  be  forgotten  !  " 

Beaumarchais  was  no  Joseph — on  the  contrary — but  is 
it  not  an  engaging  spectacle  to  see  the  scandalized  author 
of  the  Erotica  Biblion  emerge,  reeling,  from  the  obscurity 
of  the  Paphian  groves  to  champion  the  cause  of  pubhc 
and  private  morality,  so  shamelessly  outraged  in  the  life 
and  writings  of  the  creator  of  Figaro  ? 

If  Gudin  is  to  be  credited,  the  quarrel  actually 
originated  in  his  friend's  refusal  to  accommodate  the 
impecunious  Comte  with  a  loan.  "  Mirabeau,"  he  says, 
"  who  was  at  that  time  known  only  by  his  love  affairs, 
his  debts,  and  his  eloquent  work  on  Lettres  de  Cachet, 
lived  solely  upon  borrowed  money.  He  called  upon 
Beaumarchais.  They  knew  each  other  only  by  reputation. 
The  conversation  which  followed  was  gay,  lively  and 
witty  ;  before  taking  his  leave  the  Comte,  with  the  easy 
familiarity  peculiar  to  habitual  borrowers,  asked  him 
for  a  loan  of  twelve  thousand  francs.  Beaumarchais 
refused  with  the  whimsical  gaiety  which  distinguished  him. 
"  '  But  it  would  be  easy  for  you  to  lend  me  this  amount,' 
said  Mirabeau. 

"  '  No  doubt,'  retorted  Beaumarchais,  *  but,  M.  le 
Comte,  since  I  should  have  to  quarrel  with  you  on  the 

273  18 


Figaro  :    The  Life  of  Beaumarchais 

day  the  debt  fell  due,  I  would  just  as  soon  it  should  be 
to-day— and  I  shall  be  twelve  thousand  francs  in  pocket.'  "* 

However  this  may  be,  the  conflict  was  fast  and  furious, 
but  of  short  duration,  for,  hke  Major  O' Flaherty  on  a 
similar  occasion,  the  natural  impetuosity  of  both  parties 
to  the  quarrel  had  urged  them  "  to  fight  first  and  explain 
afterwards."! 

Beaumarchais,  with  that  sympathetic  indulgence 
towards  the  weaknesses  and  necessities  of  his  fellows 
which  is  such  a  charming  trait  of  his  character,  never 
pressed  the  advantage  which  his  knowledge  of  the  seamy 
side  of  Mirabeau's  career  afforded  him,  and  made  no  reply 
to  his  abuse.  His  dignity  and  forbearance,  under  great 
provocation — aided  perhaps  by  an  opportune  private  loan 
— soon  induced  the  great  orator,  who,  after  all,  was  a 
gentleman,  to  make  the  first  advances  towards  a  recon- 
ciliation. Beaumarchais  asked  for  nothing  better.  Such 
affairs  are  easily  accommodated  when  both  parties  are  as 
entirely  free  from  pettiness  and  retrospective  malice  as 
were  Beaumarchais  and  Mirabeau.  M.  de  Lomenie  has 
published  an  amusing  correspondence  which  subsequently 
passed  between  them,  and  in  his  latter  years  Beau- 
marchais, the  survivor,  could  write  of  the  man  who  was 
destined  to  carry  the  maxims  of  Figaro  into  action  : 

"  We  were  really  divided  more  in  feeling  than  in 
opinion.  He  changed  his  mind  about  me,  and  very  hand- 
somely made  amends  for  his  misjudgment  of  me." 

*  See  Gudin,  "  Histoire  de  Beaumarchais,"  p.  363. 

t  See  Richard  Cumberland's  play.  The  West  Indian,  first  acted  in  1771. 


274 


CHAPTER   XXIX 

THE    TRIBULATIONS    OF    A    KNIGHT-ERRANT 

BEAUMARCHAIS  was  no  sooner  out  of  one  scrape 
than  he  was  in  another  ;  or,  rather,  he  was  for 
most  of  his  hfe  in  several  scrapes  at  the  same  time. 

Dining  one  day  with  his  friends,  the  Prince  and  Prin- 
cesse  de  Nassau-Siegen,  says  Gudin,  he  was  deeply  moved 
by  the  pitiable  story,  told  at  table,  of  a  girl  wife  and 
mother  of  nineteen,  against  whom  an  unprincipled  and 
tyrannical  husband  had  obtained  a  lettre  de  cachet,  by 
means  of  which  he  had  caused  her  to  be  imprisoned  for 
the  past  six  months  in  a  penitentiary  for  loose  women 
and  lunatics.  Seeing  his  emotion,  his  hosts  begged  him 
to  join  them  in  an  attempt  to  secure  the  prisoner's  release, 
their  own  efforts  having  proved  unsuccessful.  At  first 
he  excused  himself  from  being  drawn  into  a  domestic 
quarrel  between  people  who  were  complete  strangers  to 
him,  declaring  that  he  "  had  never  yet  performed  a  praise- 
worthy and  generous  action  which  had  not  caused  him 
endless  worries  and  vexations,  whereas  all  his  successes 
had  been  entirely  due  to  his  amusing  follies."  He  may 
also  possibly  have  remembered  Sganarelle's  lesson  to 
M.  Robert  when  the  latter  made  a  timid  effort  to  stop 
that  worthy  from  beating  his  wife.  "  Apprenez,"  cried 
Sganarelle,  "  que  Ciceron  dit  qu'entre  I'arbre  et  le  doigt  il 
ne  faut  point  mettre  Vecorce^'  and  thereupon  proceeded  to 
beat  him  unmercifully.  Beaumarchais  would  have  done 
well  to  act  on  that  sound  advice,  for  it  was  he  who  received 
the  heaviest  blows  in  the  prolonged  and  relentless  encounter 
between  the  engaging  Kornmann  and  his  wife. 

With  a  view  to  overcoming  his  last  scruples,  his  host 
showed  him  an  affecting  petition  which  the  unhappy  girl 
had  addressed  to  the  President  of  the  Parlement.  From 
this  document  it  appeared  that  she  was  a  Protestant  of 

275  i8* 


Figaro  :    The  Life  of  Beaumarchais 

Swiss  birth,  and  an  orphan,  whose  relatives  had  per- 
suaded her  very  reluctantly  to  marry,  at  fifteen  years  of 
age,  an  Alsatian  banker,  named  Kornmann,  to  whom 
she  brought  a  dowry  of  360,000  francs,  besides  a  personal 
fortune  of  60,000  francs.  She  had  two  children  and  was 
again  about  to  become  a  mother. 

Her  husband  being  on  the  point  of  bankruptcy,  she 
had  endeavoured  to  prevent  her  dowry  from  falling  into 
his  hands,  more  for  her  children's  sake  than  for  her  own. 
This  had  irritated  her  husband,  who  avenged  himself  by 
procuring  a  lettre  de  cachet  against  her,  on  an  accusation 
of  adultery,  and  causing  her  to  be  conveyed  secretly  to 
prison.  She  was  not  in  a  position  to  deny  the  charge  made 
against  her,  but  claimed  the  right  to  defend  her  life, 
honour  and  fortune  before  the  law.  In  other  words,  he 
sued  for  divorce  on  the  ground  of  her  bad  conduct,  whilst 
she  counter-petitioned  on  the  plea  of  his  bad  business. 

The  Prince  further  showed  Beaumarchais  several 
affectionate  letters,  written  by  Kornmann  to  the  man 
whom  he  afterwards  accused  of  seducing  her,  in  one  of 
which  he  says  :  "  Everything  depends  upon  her,  and,  for 
my  part,  I  know  how  to  make  allowances  for  human 
frailty,  for  my  happiness  will  always  consist  in  assuring 
that  of  my  wife."  Could  anything  be  more  explicit  ? 
The  accused  man  was  an  elegant  and  witty  young  gentle- 
man, whose  acquaintance  Beaumarchais  had  made  at 
the  time  of  the  Goezman  trial,  named  Daudet  de  Jossan, 
a  grandson  of  the  celebrated  actress  Adrienne  Lecouvreur 
and  Marshal  de  Saxe. 

Under  the  patronage  of  the  Prince  de  Montbarey, 
Minister  of  War,  Daudet  had  been  appointed  Deputy 
Official  Receiver  of  the  city  of  Strasburg.  This  position 
giving  him  a  considerable  amount  of  influence  in  Alsace, 
Kornmann  had  invited  him  to  his  house  in  Paris,  and  had 
introduced  him  to  his  wife.  Daudet  had  promptly  fallen 
in  love  with  her.  Perceiving  his  infatuation,  the  provident 
Kornmann  accepted  the  situation  with  philosophy,  dis- 
creetly threw  the  young  people  into  each  other's  society, 
and  used  his  friend's  credit  with  the  minister  to  the  utmost 
for  his  own  advancement.  All  went  comfortably  until 
the  Prince  was  dismissed  from  office,  and  was  succeeded 
b}^   a  minister   "  that   knew  not   Joseph,"   when   Daudet 

276 


The  Tribulations  of  a  Knight -Errant 

lost  his  post.     Simultaneously,   the  accommodating  hus- 
band became  transformed  into  a  veritable  Othello. 

Kornmann's  letters  revealed  such  baseness  that  Beau- 
marchais,  proceeds  Gudin,  filled  with  indignation  and 
loathing,  at  once  made  up  his  mind,  hastened  to  the 
ministers,  and  worried  them  until  he  had  obtained  an 
order  from  the  King  revoking  the  lettre  de  cachet  and 
directing  the  Lieutenant  of  Police,  Le  Noir,  to  convey  the 
prisoner  to  a  private  hospital,  where  she  could  receive 
proper  medical  attention  and  consult  with  her  legal  ad- 
visers as  to  the  conduct  of  her  case  against  her  tormentor. 
The  knight-errant' s  reputation  for  gallantry  naturally 
aroused  suspicion  of  his  motive  in  befriending  the  dis- 
tressed lady,  but  the  tone  of  their  correspondence  entitles 
him  to  the  benefit  of  the  doubt.  To  her  he  is  always 
"  Dear  Papa." 

Thus  the  man  who  was  powerless  to  avert  his  own 
arbitrary  and  dishonouring  imprisonment  proved  himself 
to  have  more  influence  than  a  Prince  and  Princess  when  the 
matter  was  to  secure  the  prompt  release  of  another. 
Can  we  wonder  at  the  lengths  to  which  Figaro's  exaspera- 
tion carried  him,  or  at  the  ever-increasing  bitterness  of  his 
gibes  against  the  existing  social  order  ? 

Meanwhile  the  affairs  of  Kornmann  went  from  bad 
to  worse,  and  Beaumarchais,  we  are  told,  continued  to  give 
the  young  wife  the  benefit  of  his  counsels  and  experience 
in  her  efforts  to  save  her  fortune. 

Six  years  passed,  during  which  Kornmann  made  the 
acquaintance  of  a  splenetic  and  ambitious  young  advocate, 
named  Bergasse,  on  the  look  out,  as  Mirabeau  had  been 
before  him,  to  seize  the  first  chance  of  pushing  his  way 
forward.  Kornmann,  still  eagerly  in  pursuit  of  his  wife's 
dowry,  confided  to  his  new  friend  his  version  of  the  dis- 
tressing story,  and  appears  to  have  convinced  him  of  its 
substantial  truth.  Bergasse  at  once  perceived  that  the  fact 
of  Beaumarchais  being  mixed  up  in  the  case  provided  an 
excellent  opportunity,  almost  entirely  free  from  risk,  of 
exercising  his  talents.  He  urged  Kornmann  to  bring  a 
criminal  lawsuit  for  adultery  against  Daudet,  and  Le  Noir 
(now  retired  from  office  and,  therefore,  no  longer  to  be 
feared),  whom  he  declared  also  to  have  been  on  intimate 
terms  with  his  wife,  coupling  with  them  the  names  of  the 

277 


Figaro  :  The  Life  of  Beaumarchais 

Prince  and  Princesse  de  Nassau-Siegen  and  Beaumarchais 
as  guilty  of  aiding  and  abetting  her  misconduct. 

Bergasse  put  this  accusation  in  a  hterary  setting,  in 
which  he  represented  Beaumarchais  as  the  prime  mover 
in  a  vile  plot  to  ruin  the  domestic  peace  of  the  honest 
Kornmann.     This    pamphlet,    which   was    signed   by    the 
aggrieved  husband  and   ostensibly   written  by  him,   was 
widely  circulated  throughout  Paris.     It  is,  on  the  whole, 
a  dull  and  pompous  document,  weak  in  logic,  but  full  of 
venom  against  Beaumarchais  and  hot-air  philosophy  and 
sounding  phrases  for  general  consumption.     So  far  as  we 
have  been   able   to  understand  him,   Bergasse  made  his 
client   plead   alternatively   to  be   allowed   to   rid  himself 
of  his  wife  because  she  was  a  worthless  baggage,  but  to 
retain  her   dowry,   as  the  more  useful  article  ;    or,  that 
if  he  could  not  keep  the  dowry  alone,  he  was  perfectly 
willing   to   welcome   wife   and   dowry   together,   but   that 
scoundrel   Beaumarchais   had   deliberately   set   himself   to 
prevent  the  reconciliation  of  an  affectionate  couple  suffering 
under  a  temporary   estrangement.     A  peculiarity   of  the 
pamphlet  is  that  the  orator,  in  the  heat  of  inspiration, 
seems  often  to  lose  sight  of  his  chent's  interests  altogether, 
and  causes  him  to  make  some  singular  admissions,  coming 
from    a   justly   incensed   husband.     He   naively   explains, 
for   instance,    that   the   reason   why   he   had   allowed   six 
years  to  elapse  before  taking  legal  action  against  his  wife's 
accomplices  was  that  M.  Le  Noir,  one  of  the  defendants, 
"  had  promised  him  a  post  in  the  Indies."     In  fact,  he 
reminds  us  irresistibly  of  the  defending  advocate's  alleged 
peroration  in  the  trial  of  the  unfortunate  Marshal  Bazaine  : 
"  I  ask  you,  gentlemen,"  exclaimed  this  orator  to  the 
jury,  "  to  look  carefully  at  the  accused.    That,  I  tell  you,  is 
not  the  face  of  a  traitor  :  it  is  the  face  of  an  imbecile  !  " 

As  for  Beaumarchais,  every  art  of  the  libeller  was  en- 
hsted  to  blacken  his  life  and  character. 

His  reply  was  to  publish  Kornmann's  letters  to  Daudet, 
with  a  running  commentary,  thus  putting  his  adversary  for 
the  second  time  in  the  awkward  dilemma  in  which  he  found 
himself  when  Daudet's  advocate  at  the  trial  concluded  his 
speech  for  the  defence  with  the  words  :  "  Either  you 
are  the  most  wicked  slanderer  or  the  vilest  of  husbands  : 
whichever  you  like."     Beaumarchais  was  not  the  man  to 

278 


The  Tribulations  of  a  Knight -Errant 

be  slandered  with  impunity,  for  in  spite  of  all  that  his 
apologists  have  said  to  the  contrary,  his  own  weapons  in 
a  warfare  of  this  kind  were  none  too  clean,  as  is  proved 
by  a  hitherto  unpublished  letter,  addressed  to  him  at  this 
time,  by  the  enterprising  Theveneau  de  Morande.  As 
this  document,  which  has  escaped  the  notice  of  previous 
writers,  furnishes  an  illuminating  commentary  on  the 
naive  confidence,  so  often  expressed,  in  the  assertion  of 
Beaumarchais  that,  by  dint  of  his  persuasive  eloquence, 
he  had  definitely  converted  "  this  expert  poacher  into  an 
excellent  gamekeeper,"  we  propose  to  quote  it  at  some 
length.  Moreover,  its  deft  combination  of  whine,  wheedle 
and  threat  bears  eloquent  testimony  to  the  strange  lack  of 
discrimination  Beaumarchais  often  displayed  in  the  choice 
of  his  familiars. 

"  I  have  often  heard  you  declare,"  wrote  Morande 
from  London  on  the  7th  July,  1787,  "  that  you  had 
adopted  as  your  motto  '  Either  a  millionaire  or  be  broken 
on  the  wheel.'  However  that  may  be,  my  personal  interest 
demands  that  I  should  look  for  you  and  that  I  should  find 
you.  In  case  my  first  letter  should  have  miscarried,  I 
have  the  honour  of  writing  you  a  second  one,  and  to  ensure 
its  reaching  you  I  have  made  two  copies,  one  of  which  I 
shall  address  to  M.  Bergasse  and  the  other  to  M.  le  Comte 
de  Mirabeau,  with  the  request  that  they  will  forward  them 
to  you.  These  gentlemen,  or  at  least  one  of  them,  will 
assuredy  know  what  has  become  of  you. 

"  You  will  remember,  sir,  that  in  your  letters  of  the 
4th,  13th,  19th  and  27th  of  March  and  the  3rd  and  6th 
of  June  last,  you  requested  me  to  insert  in  my  Courrier 
de  r Europe  several  articles  of  your  own  composition, 
in  which  you  forbade  me  to  make  any  alteration,  and 
that,  moreover,  you  required  that  everything  should 
be  printed  without  inverted  commas  in  order  tha.t  nobody 
should  suspect  that  anyone  but  myself  was  the  author. 
Four  of  these  articles  were  against  M.  Guillaume  Korn- 
mann :  you  paid  me  for  them  at  the  rate  of  a  guinea  a  line. 
I  do  not  complain  of  the  price  :  it  was  quite  reasonable. 
As  to  the  fifth  article,  I  refused  to  insert  it  in  my  Courrier, 
because,  upon  my  word,  accustomed  as  I  am  to  write  any- 
thing that  I  am  asked  (for  money,  you  understand),  a  kind 
of  remorse  prevailed  over  my  cupidity,   and  I  preferred 

279 


Figaro  :    The  Life  of  Beaumarchais 

to  gain  so  much  less  rather  than  be  an  accomphce  in  the 
slander  of  a  man  to  whom  I  am  under  some  obligation,  and 
to  whom  you  yourself  are  under  still  greater  ;  and,  I  must 
confess,  sir,  this  behaviour  of  yours  proved  to  me  that  I 
have  still  a  great  deal  to  learn  in  the  art  of  doing  harm. 

"  I  quite  understand  that  this  side-thrust,  this  furtive 
kick,  creates  a  diversion  and  makes  your  own  case  appear 
in  a  less  odious  light,  but,  however  weighty  your  reasons 
might  be,  I  was  unable  to  serve  you  on  this  occasion. 
Can  it  be,  by  any  chance,  this  refusal — which  would  do  me 
infinite  honour  in  the  eyes  of  all  honest  men — can  it  be,  I 
say,  this  refusal  which  has  embittered  you  against  me,  and 
now  deprives  me  of  your  answer,  of  which  I  am  in  great 
need  for  my  peace  of  mind  ?  For,  after  all,  you  know, 
M.  G.  Kornmann's  complaint  is  a  serious  matter.  Not 
that  I  fear  the  consequences,  for  I  have  sixty  such  cases 
on  my  hands,  and,  I  assure  you,  feel  not  a  penny  the  worse. 
But  the  consequences  I  do  feel  are  lest  my  Courrier  should 
fall  into  discredit.  If  that  were  to  happen,  it  would  mean 
farewell  to  my  sole  means  of  existence,  and  I  should  lose 
everything  if  I  allowed  my  love  of  you  and  your  money 
to  lead  me  into  an  infraction  of  the  law.  If  the  King  of 
France,  who  enjoys  a  laugh  like  anyone  else — but  will 
on  no  account  tolerate  slander  and  defamation  of  character, 
because  he  loves  honour  and  virtue — if  this  good  King, 
at  the  instigation  of  one  of  his  Ministers — M.  de  Lamoignon, 
for  example,  who,  to  the  confusion  of  libellers,  has  succeeded 
*  *  *  *  — should  take  it  into  his  head  to  forbid  the  entry 
of  my  unlucky  Courrier  into  the  country,  what  would 
become  of  me  ?  .   .   . 

"  If  I  knew  how  to  do  anything  else,  I  would  not  mind 
a  bit  ;  but  I  only  know  how  to  slander  :  it  is  my  only  trade. 
And  I  will  say  this  for  it  :  I  know  of  few  more  lucrative 
or  amusing  professions.  It  should,  therefore,  sir,  be  re- 
garded by  you  as  a  matter  of  honour  to  come  to  my  aid. 

"  In  your  letters  you  promised  to  give  me  every  assist- 
ance, and  I  claim  the  fulfilment  of  your  word.  You 
assured  me  that  you  could  '  twist  the  Ministers  and  Chief 
Clerks  round  your  little  finger,'  etc.,  etc.  Now  is  the 
moment  to  make  use  of  your  influence  with  them. 

"  This  would  be  but  an  act  of  justice  on  your  part 
towards  me,  for,  I  repeat,  if  my  Courrier  is  banned  in 

280 


The  Tribulations  of  a  Knight-Errant 

France,  where  I  have  over  four  thousand  subscribers,  I 
am  ruined,  and  the  only  thing  for  me  to  do  will  be  to  throw 
myself  into  the  Thames. 

"  If,  on  the  contrary,  you  come  honourably  to  rescue 
me  from  the  cruel  situation  in  which  I  now  find  myself, 
you  can  count  on  my  eternal  gratitude  :  I  will  give  vou  the 
preference  over  everyone  else  for  the  insertion  of  articles 
which  you  may  wish  to  have  published  in  my  Courrier. 
If  I  thought  self-interest  to  be  a  more  powerful  incentive 
with  you  to  dispel  all  my  fears,  I  would  make  you  a  pro- 
posal. If  you  will  prevail  upon  the  Ministers  to  allow  the 
continued  entry  of  my  periodical  into  France,  I  will  under- 
take to  pubhsh  your  articles  at  the  greatly  reduced  rate  of 
twelve  livres  per  line.  .  .  . 

"  It  is  a  pity  this  Kornmann  has  settled  in  France. 
If  only  he  had  been  a  temporary  resident — Oh  !  what  a 
lot  of  money  I  should  earn  !  .  .  .  But  these  permanent 
settlers  pay  all  the  various  taxes  and  impositions,  and 
are,  therefore,  invaluable  to  the  Royal  Treasury,  whereas 
a  foreigner  is  .  .  .  well,  a  foreigner,  and  pays  nothing.  .  .  . 

"  During  the  last  few  years  I  have  been  doing  ex- 
ceedingly good  business,  and  if  only  I  had  known  how  to 
behave  myself  and  take  care  of  my  money,  I  should  be 
rich,  even  very  rich,  by  now  ;  but  some  damned  fatality 
or  other  has  always  decreed  that  what  I  saved  on  the 
swings  I  should  spend  on  the  roundabouts. 

"  As  you  are  fond  of  proverbs,  sir,  I  have  not  hesitated 
to  put  this  one  into  my  letter  ;  indeed,  without  being 
able  to  prove  them,  where  would  he  La  Precaution  Inutile 
Siud  La  Folle  J  our  nee. 

"  A  few  printers,  colporteurs,  and  all  the  booksellers 
of  Paris  are  less  delicate  than  I,  for  they  print,  distribute 
and  sell  a  multitude  of  brochures  in  which  you  are  treated 
like  the  child  of  a  noble  family  :  they  will  not  excuse  you 
even  a  peccadillo.  .  .  . 

**  Ah  !  well,  sir,  that  is  the  way  they  earn  their  living, 
and  I  am  sure  you  do  not  mind  contributing  indirectly 
to  the  good  which  results  from  the  ill  they  do  you  directly. 
That  is  the  sign  of  a  lofty  soul.  A  Kornmann  would 
have  roared,  shouted,  bawled,  bellowed  {bellowed  is  the 
word  :  there  is  certainly  an  analogy  between  the  animal 
that  bellows  and  Kornmann  :  you  know  that  as  well    as 

2S1 


Figaro  :   The  Life  of  Beaumarchais 

anyone,  except,  of  course,  Messrs.  Daudet,  etc.,  and  the 
young  Dutchman,  who  knows  it  even  better  than  you  do). 
Kornmann,  then,  would  have  bellowed  .  .  .  whilst  you, 
everybody  assures  me  that  you  laughed  at  it — capital  fellow  ! 

"  All  these  little  lampoons  come  to  a  rascally  book- 
seller in  London,  who  reprints  them  in  French  and  English 
(how  their  authors'  vanity  must  be  flattered  to  be  translated 
into  English  !). 

"  Everybody  is  talking  about  you  in  the  clubs,  the 
taverns  and  the  pubhc  walks  ;  nobody  can  open  his 
mouth  in  society  without  your  name  cropping  up.  Your 
affairs  are  the  one  topic  of  discussion  from  the  Haymarket 
to  St.  James's,  and  from  the  Tower  to  Tyburn.  If  some 
people  fling  you  to  the  wolves,  others  find  plausible  motives 
for  your  conduct  :  one  of  our  sage  Ministers  thinks  it 
very  likely  that  you  took  Madame  Kornmann  into  your  care 
with  the  sole  object  of  leading  that  wandering  sheep  back 
to  the  bosom  of  the  Church,  and  that  you  must  certainly 
have  caught  this  taste  for  the  conversion  of  souls  while  in 
the  retreat  you  were  invited  to  make  at  Saint  Lazare. 

"  It  is  announced  here  that  your  hfe  is  to  be  pubhshed. 
That  should  be  a  very  fetching  morsel  if  well  done.  For 
my  part,  I  doubt  whether  the  details  will  be  strictly  true 
to  fact,  or  whether  the  writer  will  be  able  to  catch  the 
continual  play  of  expression,  the  lines,  gradations,  colours, 
shadows,  tints  and  half-tints  so  essential  to  the  faithful 
rendering  of  your  physiognomy.  The  value  of  a  portrait 
resides  entirely  in  its  perfect  resemblance  to  the  sitter  : 
and  no  painter,  however  great  his  ability,  will  succeed  in 
faithfully  portraying  you.  The  last  verse  of  a  well-known 
couplet  might  be  appositely  applied  to  your  case  : 

'Pour  dire  ce  qu'il  est,  il  faut  etre  lui-meme!' 

"  In  fact,  sir,  if  you  would  take  the  trouble  to  write 
your  own  life  ;  if,  like  a  new  Augustine,  you  would  make  a 
general  confession,  giving  names,  places  and  circum- 
stances— what  a  hit  the  book  would  make  !  I  am  certain 
that  you  could  sell  the  MS.  for  a  thousand  guineas,  and 
that  is  well  worth  the  trouble.  If  the  public  were  as 
curious  about  my  life  as  they  are  about  yours  I  would 
not  hesitate  a  moment.  Faith  !  Long  live  money  !  say 
I,  for  it  is  the  only  thing  worth  having  in  this  world  ! 

282 


The  Tribulations  of  a  Knight-Errant 

"  Before  closing,  I  must  tell  you,  sir,  that  the  feebleness 
of  your  reply  to  Kornmann's  first  pamphlet  is  responsible 
for  a  rumour  which  is  being  widely  circulated  and  credited 
in  London,  to  the  effect  that  you  were  not  really  the 
author  of  the  famous  memoire  which  spread  your  reputa- 
tion beyond  the  alcoves,  boudoirs  and  ante-chambers  ; 
that,  on  the  contrary,  at  the  time  of  that  great  lawsuit 
you  were  so  petrified  with  terror  that  you  were  incapable 
of  doing  anything  whatsoever.  .  .  . 

"  We  thoroughly  understand  and  admire  each  other," 
wrote  Morande  in  conclusion,  "  and  were  not  made  to  be 
enemies." 

In  this  singularly  damaging  epistle  the  medicine  is 
administered  with  the  greatest  economy  of  jam,  and  it  is 
clear  that  Beaumarchais  got  very  little  satisfaction  from 
this  henchman,  whose  sword  inflicted  far  more  dangerous 
wounds  on  those  who  fought  with  him  than  on  those  who 
fought  against  him. 

As  for  Bergasse,  his  assaults  on  the  name  and  good 
fame  of  Beaumarchais  proceeded  with  an  ever-increasing 
fury.  He  characterized  the  author  of  Figaro  as  "  a  man 
whose  sacrilegious  existence  testifies  in  a  glaringly  shameful 
manner  to  the  degree  of  profound  depravity  at  which  \  e 
have  now  arrived,"  and  in  another  memoire,  this  time  speak- 
ing for  himself,  cried  :  ''  Wretch  !  thou  sweatest  crime  !  " 
A  man  should  be  very  sure  of  his  own  virtue  before  venturing 
on  such  amenities,  for,  generally  speaking,  the  better  a 
man  is  the  more  good  he  will  find  in  others. 

In  spite  of  the  inflated  style  in  which  they  were  couched 
some  of  the  shafts  reached  their  mark.  Beaumarchais 
lost  his  temper  altogether,  and,  whilst  Figaro  was  still 
declaiming  upon  the  stage  against  arbitrary  imprisonment 
and  other  abuses  of  the  time,  his  creator  applied  for  and 
obtained  a  lettre  de  cachet  against  his  relentless  persecutor. 
In  his  terror  Bergasse  was  happily  inspired  to  write  per- 
sonally to  the  King  the  following  letter,  which,  we  believe, 
has  not  previously  been  published  : 

"  September  i8th,  1788. 
"  Sire, 

"  An   honest   man   places  his    honour,   his   Hberty 
and  his  hfe  in  Your  Majesty's  hands. 

283 


Figaro  :   The  Life  of  Beaumarchais 

"  He  is  threatened. 
'*  He  has  it  in  his  power  to  escape. 

"  Reflecting  upon  what  he  has  nobly  done,  and  on  the 
personal  virtues  of  Your  Majesty ^ 
**  He  stands  his  ground. 

"  Your  Majesty's  most  faithful  subject,  etc., 

"  Bergasse." 

This  letter  attained  its  object,  and  Louis  at  once  re- 
scinded the  lettre  de  cachet.  The  whole  incident  shows  that 
Bergasse  was  a  more  redoubtable  enemy  than  the  apologists 
of  Beaumarchais  have  given  him  credit  for. 

By  a  judgment  rendered  on  the  2nd  of  April,  1789,  the 
memoirs  of  Bergasse  were  ordered  to  be  suppressed  as 
"  false,  abusive  and  slanderous,"  and  he  was  condemned 
to  pay  Beaumarchais  1,000  livres  damages  and  warned 
against  a  repetition  of  his  offence  "  on  pain  of  exemplary 
punishment."  Kornmann  was  judged  guilty  of  collusion, 
and  his  petition  against  his  wife  and  Daudet  dismissed, 
whilst  he  also  was  condemned  in  damages  to  the  same 
amount  as  Bergasse. 

But  though  Beaumarchais  had  won  a  decisive  victory 
and  vindicated  his  name  in  the  eyes  of  the  law,  the  case 
had  a  most  damaging  effect  on  his  reputation  with  the 
general  public,  for  Bergasse  had  skilfully  manoeuvred  him- 
self into  the  position  which,  in  the  Goezman  trial,  had 
been  occupied  by  his  opponent,  and  was  generally  regarded 
as  the  upholder  of  the  cause  of  the  people  against  the 
machinations  of  the  aristocrats.  He  had,  moreover,  suc- 
ceeded in  instilling  into  the  public  mind  the  dastardly 
suggestion  that  his  adversary  was  a  secret  agent  of  the 
Court  party,  and,  worse  still,  that  he  was  guilty  of  corner- 
ing wheat  ;  and  all  the  efforts  of  Beaumarchais  to  clear 
himself  of  this  suspicion  were  in  vain. 

Thus,  by  a  strange  fatality,  the  most  daring  herald  of 
the  new  era  found  himself,  at  its  dawn,  almost  universally 
regarded  with  fear  and  mistrust. 


284 


CHAPTER  XXX 

TARARE,    AND   THE   LAST   INCARNATION    OF   FIGARO 

WHEN  the  storm  of  the  Kornmann  case  broke  over 
him  Beaumarchais  was  occupied,  among  other 
things,  with  the  estabhshment  of  the  first  French  Discount 
Bank,  of  which  he  was  one  of  the  promoters,  a  scheme  for  a 
Panama  Canal,  the  collecting  of  MSS.  for  the  Royal  Library 
(the  Bibliotheque  Nationale  owes  him  a  great  debt  of 
gratitude  for  his  services  in  saving  and  restoring  large 
quantities  of  precious  documents),  and  the  rehearsals  of 
his  new  opera  Tar  are.  This  was  apart  from  the  numerous 
enterprises  described  in  the  previous  chapters,  most  of 
which  still  demanded  unremitting  attention. 

For  many  years  past  he  had  held  decided  and  uncon- 
ventional views  on  operatic  composition.  He  ridiculed 
the  lyrical  drama  of  his  day  as  a  survival  of  an  outworn 
tradition,  and  hoped  one  day  to  write  a  work  in 
which  "  all  the  fine  arts  should  be  combined  and  brought 
into  harmony,"  and  to  give  a  new  lease  of  life  to  this  form 
of  drama.  When,  therefore  (according  to  a  contemporary 
letter  we  have  seen),  an  acquaintance  asked  if  he  could 
suggest  a  motto  to  be  inscribed  over  the  newly  built  Opera- 
house,  he  replied  : 

"  Nail  this  up  until  it  deserves  a  better  : 

"  A  1' Opera  tout  est  parfait, 

Hors  rOpera  qui  n'est  pas  fait." 

The  credit  of  the  discovery  that  at  least  the  first  prose 
draft  of  Tarare  was  in  existence  soon  after  the  production 
of  The  Barber  of  Seville  belongs  to  M.  Lintilhac,  who  regales 
us  with  several  piquant  extracts  from  this  forgotten  MS., 
in  his  scholarly  work,  Beaumarchais  et  ses  ceuvres. 

Whilst  reading  Hamilton's  charming  tale,  Fleur  d'Epine, 
285 


Figaro  :   The  Life  of  Beaumarchais 

Beaumarchais  was  struck  by  the  grotesque  name  of  the 
principal  character  Tarare,  and  by  the  extraordinary 
effect  which  this  name  produced  upon  all  who  heard  it. 
In  Hamilton's  story  Tarare  is  represented  as  an  uncom- 
monly intelligent  and  sagacious  person  of  humble  birth, 
who  succeeds  in  raising  himself  to  wealth  and  power  by 
dint  of  cleverness  in  overcoming  every  kind  of  difficulty 
and  embarrassment — a  man,  in  short,  very  like  Figaro  and 
his  creator.  Beaumarchais,  then,  borrowed  this  name 
from  Hamilton,  and  gave  it  to  a  warrior  whose  prowess  had 
aroused  the  fear  and  jealousy  of  the  tyrant  he  served, 
who  could  never  hear  it  pronounced  without  straightway 
falling  into  an  uncontrollable  rage  and  committing  some 
violence  from  which  arose  fresh  dramatic  complications. 

The  plot  of  the  opera,  however,  was  taken  from  the 
translation  of  a  Persian  tale  called  Sadak  and  Kalasrade, 
but  its  inflated  pseudo-philosophical  nonsense  belongs  to 
Beaumarchais  alone. 

In  a  fantastic  prologue  he  introduces  "  The  Spirit  of 
Reproduction,  or  Nature,"  occupied  with  the  creation  of 
life  in  concert  with  the  "  Spirit  of  Fire  (enthroned  in  the 
sun),  the  lover  of  Nature."  These  two  genii  produce,  like 
rabbits  from  a  hat,  the  dramatis  personcB  of  the  opera,  as 
required.  They  next  evoke  two  shadows  (from  heaven 
knows  where),  and  discuss  which  shall  be  King.  After 
due  consideration,  the  Spirit  of  Fire,  by  "  the  laying  on  of 
hands,"  makes  one  of  the  shadows  the  Emperor  Atar, 
King  of  Ormuz,  an  Asiatic  despot,  and  the  other  a  common 
soldier,  Tarare,  who  is  destined  to  represent  the  triumph 
of  virtue  and  intelligence  over  the  gifts  of  birth  and  chance. 
Like  another  David,  the  Emperor  covets  Tarare's  one  ewe 
lamb,  and  gives  secret  orders  for  the  recalcitrant  husband 
to  be  set  in  the  forefront  of  the  battle  ;  but  this  Uriah 
by  a  nice  combination  of  astuteness  and  audacity  frustrated 
the  designs  of  this  despotic  Almaviva,  rescued  his  Asiatic 
Suzanne  from  the  wiles  of  an  Oriental  Basile  in  the  person 
of  the  Chief  Brahman,  overthrew  the  incontinent  Atar,  and 
was  unanimously  elected  to  reign  in  his  stead. 

To  tell  the  truth,  this  turbaned  Figaro  is  a  very  dull 
dog.  In  his  journey  from  the  castle  in  Spain  to  the  heart 
of  Asia  he  has  lost  in  gaiety  and  humour  what  he  has  gained 
in   uprightness.     He    has   become    a   freethinking,    meta- 

286 


Tar  are,  and  the  last  Incarnation  of  Figaro 

physical  and  annoyingly  argumentative  pedant,  with  a 
mania  for  declaiming  against  Church  and  State,  and  noble- 
men, and  cabbages  and  Kings. 

Tarare  is,  indeed,  a  monstrous  and  indigestible  com- 
position, in  second-rate  verse.  As  M.  Jourdain  would 
have  said,  there  is  too  much  hrouillamini  about  the  drama. 
It  contains  a  little  philosophy,  physics,  metaphysics,  phy- 
sical science,  freethought,  a  new  mythology — a  little  of 
everything,  in  short,  except  the  quenchless  wit  and 
humour  which  we  find  everywhere  else  in  the  work  of 
Beaumarchais. 

This  is  strange,  for  the  prose  draft,  mentioned  above, 
is  by  no  means  devoid  of  fun  and  Rabelaisian  high  spirits. 
When,  for  example,  the  Sultan  (Atar)  complains  to  Calpigi, 
the  Eunuch,  of  the  monotony  of  his  existence,  surrounded 
as  he  is  by  his  too,  too  loving  wives,  the  slave  replies  : 

"  Ah  !  if  only  there  were  a  Frenchman  here,  he  would 
scale  the  walls  of  your  seraglio  in  the  twinkling  of  an  eye, 
solely  for  the  pleasure  of  tasting  a  piece  of  Sultana." 

"  And  I  would  have  him  hanged,  even  though  he  were 
a  man  of  rank." 

"  He  would  not  mind  that  in  the  least  :  they  are  never 
proud  when  they  are  love-making." 

When  Beaumarchais  had  completed  his  MS.,  says 
Gudin,  he  sent  it  to  Gluck,  with  the  suggestion  that  he 
should  set  it  to  music.  The  aged  composer,  we  are  told, 
was  flattered  by  the  proposal,  and  promised  to  undertake 
the  work,  but  later  discreetly  came  to  the  conclusion  that 
it  was  beyond  his  strength,  and  suggested  his  favourite 
pupil  Salieri  as  a  substitute. 

Beaumarchais  invited  this  young  Italian  to  stay  at  his 
house,  won  him  over  to  his  views,  and  the  pair  shut  them- 
selves up  and  set  to  work.  Having  the  composer  under 
his  thumb,  as  it  were,  he  was  determined  that  there  should 
not  be  too  much  music  ;  or,  at  any  rate,  not  enough  to 
prevent  the  audience  from  hearing  every  word  of  his 
libretto. 

The  piece  was  superbly  mounted,  the  decoration  and 
costumes  alone  costing  the  author  fifty  thousand  francs. 
All  was  ready  for  the  first  performance,  when  Beaumarchais 
made  the  Kornmann  hbel  action  the  pretext  for  addressing 

287 


Figaro  :   The  Life  of  Beaumarchais 

the  following  letter  to  the  Baron  de  Breteuil,  Controller 
of  the  Royal  Household  : 

"  M.  LE  Baron, 

"  I  am  grieved  that  the  very  stars  in  their  courses 
seem  to  be  fighting  against  something  which  I  believe 
pleases  you  :  the  production  of  my  Tarare  and  my  scheme 
for  the  improvement  of  that  spectacle  ;  but  a  tile  has 
fallen  on  my  head  :  I  am  injured,  and  I  think  I  ought 
to  dress  my  wounds  before  amusing  myself  by  setting  the 
nymphs  dancing. 

"  I  have  the  honour  of  forwarding  to  you  a  copy  of 
my  preliminary  letter  to  the  public.  A  memoir,  clearer 
than  the  day,  will  soon  pulverize  my  dastardly  adversaries. 
But  how,  sir,  can  I  amuse  myself  by  amusing  others  whilst 
I  am  being  slandered  ? 

"  Ought  I  not  to  begin  by  sternly  taking  up  my  posi- 
tion as  an  honourable  man,  from  which  these  ruffians  seek 
to  oust  me,  before  turning  my  attention  to  my  night-cap 
reveries  ? 

"  I  quite  see  how  much  this  will  prejudice  the  opera. 
I  only  wish  I  could  arrange  matters  otherwise,  but  the 
conduct  of  a  libel  action  and  the  rehearsals  of  an  opera  are 
too  incongruous  for  there  to  be  any  hope  of  reconciling 
them,  and  I,  therefore,  beg  that  you  will  not  take  it  amiss 
if  I  withdraw  my  work  for  the  present.  .  .  . 

"  This  19th  May,  1787." 

The  next  day  M.  de  la  Ferte  forwarded  the  Baron's 
reply  : 

"  I  have  received  your  letter  of  the  19th  inst.,  sir, 
enclosing  that  of  M.  de  Beaumarchais,  and  I  cannot  under- 
stand why  the  unforeseen  circumstances  in  which  he  finds 
himself  should  preclude  the  production  of  the  opera 
Tarare.  The  public  is  eagerly  looking  forward  to  it,  and 
its  success,  which  we  have  every  reason  to  regard  as  certain, 
can  only  bring  added  lustre  to  his  literary  reputation,  and 
will  be  a  first  step  in  his  triumph  over  his  adversaries. 

"  Moreover,  since  the  King  has  graciously  consented 
to  contribute  to  the  expenses  of  the  opera,  if  the  receipts 
should  be  insufficient,  and  very  considerable  sums  have 

288 


Tar  are,  and  the  last  Incarnation  of  Figaro 

already  been  expended  on  the  mounting  of  the  work,  its 
presentation  cannot  now  be  postponed  without  com- 
promising His  Majesty's  interests  and  incurring  grave 
financial  losses. 

"  Further,  this  course  would  greatly  prejudice  the 
opera,  for  it  would  be  breaking  faith  with  the  public.  I 
urged  these  objections  upon  M.  de  Beaumarchais  this 
morning.  I  beg  you  to  see  him  upon  the  matter  and  try 
to  impress  upon  him  how  indispensable  it  is  that  the  work 
should  be  performed  on  the  5th  June,  as  arranged." 

This  communication  drew  energetic  protests  from  the  \ 
reluctant  author,  but  for  once  Louis  held  firm,  and  Tar  are  ■■ 
was  performed  on  the  8th  June  "  by  order  of  the  King." 

Here  was  another  count  in  Figaro's  indictment  of  the 
abuses  of  despotism  !  Those  who  are  on  the  look-out  for 
grievances  never  have  any  difficulty  in  finding  them. 

"  This  work,"  wrote  Grimm,  in  reference  to  Tar  are,  1 
"  is  one  of  the  strangest  conceptions  that  I  know  of.  ... 
After  telling  the  plain  truth  to  ministers  and  nobles  in  his 
comedy  The  Marriage  of  Figaro,  there  still  remained 
priests  and  kings  to  be  dealt  with  in  the  same  manner. 
Only  the  Sieur  de  Beaumarchais  could  dare  it,  and  perhaps 
he  alone  would  be  permitted  to  do  it." 

Tarare  met  with  considerable  success,  and  was  five  times 
revived,  after  being  subjected  to  various  alterations,  in 
order  to  bring  it  up  to  date.  Its  last  appearance  was 
made  thirty-two  years  after  its  first.  The  number  of 
people  seeking  admission  on  the  first  night  was  so  great 
that  the  guard  in  the  neighbourhood  had  to  be  tripled. 

In  September,  after  eighteen  performances  had  been 
given,  Beaumarchais  wrote  in  high  spirits  to  Saheri,  in 
Vienna,  that  the  opera  continued  to  draw  crowded 
audiences. 

"  On  the  8th  of  this  month,"  he  says,  "  a  great  day 
at  Saint  Cloud  :  you  made  4,200  francs,  and  last  year, 
on  a  similar  day,  a  first-rate  work  produced  only  600 
francs. 

"  Farewell,  dear  Salieri. 

"  Remember  me  to  the  giant  named  Gluck." 

289  19 


Figaro  :   The  Life  of  Beaumarchai8 

Three  months  later,  Grimm  chronicled  the  fact  that 
"  the  representation  of  this  opera  draws  crowded  audiences, 
who  listen  in  silence  and  a  sort  of  bewilderment,  such  as 
was  never  seen  before  at  any  theatre." 

Although  the  last  of  the  Figaro  trilogy  of  plays — The 
Guilty  Mother  did  not  make  its  appearance  on  the  stage 
until  1792 — it  will  be  most  convenient  to  deal  with  it  in 
this  place.  Like  Tarare,  it  was  planned  and  partly  written 
many  years  before  its  presentation.  Beaumarchais,  indeed, 
afhrms  that  his  two  comedies  were  composed  solely  as  an 
introduction  to  this  third  and  tragic  chapter  in  the  fortunes 
of  the  Almaviva  family. 

Since  the  early  days  of  the  Revolution  a  small  theatre 
had  been  opened  in  the  quarter  known  as  the  Marais  (close 
to  the  new  home  of  Beaumarchais),  in  which  he  had 
acquired  the  controlling  financial  interest.  He  gratified 
the  new  company  by  promising  them  his  new  piece. 

The  first  performance,  accordingly,  took  place  at  the 
Theatre  du  Marais  on  the  26th  June,  1792.  Its  success 
at  that  time  was  not  great.  The  moment  was  ill-chosen. 
Appearing  as  it  did  between  the  epoch-making  days  of 
June  2oth  and  August  loth,  how  could  it  be  otherwise  ? 
The  most  enthralling  of  dramas  was  then  being  played  in 
the  streets  of  Paris  :  there  was  no  need  to  seek  excitement 
elsewhere.  Moreover,  the  company  was  not  a  first-rate 
one  ;  but  when,  later,  the  piece  was  transferred  to  the 
Theatre  Frangais,  it  met  with  unqualified  success,  and  has 
held  the  stage  until  quite  recent  times. 

The  Guilty  Mother  is  a  melodrama,  but  by  no  means 
the  worst  of  its  kind.  The  story,  which  moves  swiftly  and 
easily  to  its  climax,  is  not  devoid  of  genuine  pathos,  the 
dialogue  is  spirited,  and  the  author  shows  himself  to  have 
lost  little  of  his  skill  in  dramatic  presentation. 

The  piece  is  also  interesting  as  an  early  example  of  a 
problem  play. 

The  Guilty  Mother  takes  up  the  story  of  the  Almaviva 
family  after  an  interval  of  twenty  years.  It  portrays  the 
Countess  of  Almaviva,  a  good  and  kind  woman,  broken- 
hearted at  seeing  the  happiness  of  everybody  she  loves 
poisoned  as  a  result  of  her  moment  of  folly  twenty  years 
ago.     Meanwhile,  the  villain  of  the  piece,  Major  Begearrs 

290 


Tarare,  and  the  last  Incarnation  of  Figaro 

(which,  in  the  confidence  born  of  his  ignorance  of  English, 
M.  de  Lomenie  quaintly  affirms  to  be  an  Irish  name, 
though  it  is  obviously  an  anagram,  in  deplorable  taste, 
on  the  name  of  Bergasse),  Major  Begearrs,  we  say,  who 
has  insinuated  himself  into  the  confidence  of  the  family, 
with  whom  he  has  taken  up  his  abode,  uses  his  knowledge 
of  her  past  guilt  to  terrorize  her  into  consenting  to  her 
estranged  husband's  proposal  of  marrying  him  to  his 
natural  daughter,  the  charming  Florestine,  and  disin- 
heriting her  own  son  by  Cherubin,  who  has  many  years 
ago  put  an  end  to  his  remorse  by  seeking  and  finding  death 
in  a  desperate  military  venture. 

The  only  persons  in  the  household  whom  the  h3'po- 
critical  Major  has  been  unable  to  deceive  are  Figaro  and 
his  faithful  Suzanne,  who  in  the  end  succeed  in  unmasking 
the  traitor. 

As  that  eminent  critic  Geoffroy  observed  in  reference 
to  this  conclusion  of  La  Folk  Journee,  "  the  sequel  to  folly 
is  always  sad." 

It  must,  however,  in  fairness  be  added  that  the  play 
powerfully  impressed  many  contemporaries,  including 
Napoleon  himself,  and  we  find  the  aged  Gretry  soliciting 
the  honour  of  setting  it  to  music.  "  If  you  will  let  me  do 
it,"  he  said,  "  I  will  make  the  fury  of  Almaviva  as  much 
talked  about  as  the  fury  of  Achilles." 


291  19* 


CHAPTER  XXXI 

BEAUMARCHAIS   AND   THE    DELUGE 

THE  outbreak  of  the  Revolution  took  Beaumarchais 
completely  by  surprise,  and  he  viewed  the  violence 
and  rapid  extension  of  the  conflagration  with  mingled 
amazement  and  apprehension.  He  was  in  the  position  of 
a  man  whose  supplications  have  been  suddenly  and  unex- 
pectedly answered  with  an  overwhelming  and  excessive 
zeal.  The  Immortals  had  shown  no  sense  of  proportion. 
He  had  petitioned  for  rain,  but  here  was  the  deluge  threaten- 
ing at  every  moment  to  sweep  him  off  his  feet.  The  fact 
is,  he  was  a  revolutionist  by  instinct  rather  than  con- 
viction. How  little  he  appreciated  the  extreme  gravity  of 
the  situation  for  some  years  before  the  storm  is  proved  by 
the  fact  that  the  14th  July,  1789,  found  him,  then  at  the 
height  of  his  financial  prosperity,  engaged  in  building 
himself  a  sumptuous  mansion  in  the  very  centre  of  unrest, 
facing  the  Bastille,  in  the  Faubourg  Saint-Antoine.  The 
site  of  the  property  is  now  covered  by  the  Boulevard  which 
bears  his  name,  and  by  the  Rue  Amelot,  where 
those  thoroughfares  open  out  into  the  Place  de  la 
Bastille. 

Beaumarchais  had  entrusted  the  erection  of  his  palace 
(for  it  was  nothing  less)  to  the  well-known  architect 
Lemoyne,  and  had  accepted  his  estimate  of  the  cost, 
amounting  to  300,000  livres.  But,  as  so  often  happens 
when  men  of  ideas  start  building,  the  author  of  Figaro 
allowed  his  imagination  to  run  away  with  him,  and  when 
the  dwelling  was  completed  he  was  faced  with  a  bill  for 
1,663,000  francs.  When,  in  1818,  after  wearisome  negotia- 
tions, the  City  Fathers  took  possession  of  the  property 
under  a  municipal  improvement  scheme,  they  offered,  and 

292 


Beaumarchais  and  the  Deluge 

the  heirs  of  Beaumarchais  were  constrained  to  accept,  the 
modest  sum  of  500,000  francs  in  compensation. 

In  a  letter,  dated  7th  December,  1809,  the  widow  of 
Beaumarchais  entertains  her  friend  Mme.  Dujard  with 
a  vivid  account  of  an  interview  with  Napoleon  on  this 
subject,  which  her  daughter,  the  beautiful  Eugenie,  con- 
trived with  an  aplomb  that  would  have  warmed  her 
father's  heart. 

"  It  was  not  mere  curiosity,"  she  writes,  "  which  led 
my  daughter  to  be  present  at  the  fete  :  her  object  was  to 
speak  to  the  Emperor,  and,  if  he  addressed  her,  to  seize 
the  opportunity  to  present  a  petition  respecting  our  house, 
which  for  the  last  three  years  has  been  threatened,  and 
during  the  past  year  marked  out  for  demolition,  whilst 
we  are  still  kept  in  uncertainty  as  to  its  fate.  My  daughter 
succeeded  :  the  Emperor  spoke  to  her.  Here  is  a  part  of 
the  dialogue: 

"  '  What  is  your  name  ?  ' 

"  '  I  am  the  daughter  of  Beaumarchais.' 

"  '  Are  you  married  ?  ' 

"  '  To  M.  Delarue,  a  Commissioner  of  Excise,  and 
brother-in-law  of  General  Mathieu  Dumas.' 

**  '  Have  you  any  children  ?  ' 

"  *  Two  boys  and  a  girl.' 

"  *  Did  your  father  leave  you  his  great  fortune  ?  ' 

**  *  No,  Sire,  the  Revolution  practically  ruined 
us.' 

"  '  Do  you  live  in  his  beautiful  house  ?  ' 

"  This  was  precisely  the  text  of  her  petition,  and  she 
cleverly  seized  the  opportunity  by  saying  that  this  was 
the  subject  she  desired  to  bring  to  His  Majesty's  notice  ; 
that  she  and  her  family  were  grievously  injured  by  the 
plan  which  the  Government  appeared  to  have  adopted  ; 
that  throughout  the  three  years  during  which  the  question 
of  the  demolition  of  our  house  had  been  under  considera- 
tion we  had  lost  large  sums  in  rent,  and  that  we  had  been 
compelled  to  suspend  all  repairs,  greatly  to  the  damage 
of  the  house  and  the  utmost  inconvenience  of  the  family 
who  are  obliged  to  inhabit  it. 

"  To  which  the  Emperor  replied  : 

"  *  Ah  !  well,  your  house  shall  be  valued,  and  you  shall 
be  compensated  for  it  ;    but  it  cost  an  immense  amount 

293 


Figaro  :   The  Life  of  Beaumarchais 

of  money,  and  you  must  understand  that  we  cannot  pay 
for  follies.' 

"  During  the  whole  time  my  daughter  spoke  in  a  low 
voice,  and  the  Emperor  leaned  over  her  with  his  head  very 
close  to  the  lady's  ivory  shoulder,  and  she  ended  by  giving 
him  her  petition,  which  she  had  taken  the  precaution  of 
bringing  with  her. 

"  What  is  so  pleasing  to  us  is  that  now  we  know 
exactly  where  we  stand,  and  my  children  will,  accordingly, 
know  how  to  act.  The  worst  of  our  adventure  was  that 
we  had  nothing  definite  to  act  upon  :  we  did  not  know 
whether  we  were  allowed  to  sell  or  whether  others  would 
be  permitted  to  buy.  'Very  shortly  there  is  to  be  a  law 
relating  to  private  dwellings  which  happen  to  be  in  the 
way  of  works  of  recognized  public  utility  or  merely 
general  embellishment.  This  act  will  regulate  arbitration, 
the  form  and  incidence  of  the  payment  of  compensation, 
etc.     We  await  it  with  impatience." 

This  law  was  promulgated  on  the  8th  March,  1810, 
and  thus  the  name  of  Beaumarchais  was  once  again  asso- 
ciated, even  after  his  death,  with  the  conquest  of  yet 
another  essential  right  of  citizenship. 

It  is  clear  that  Beaumarchais  had  not  lost  his  power 
of  astonishing  his  compatriots.  His  house  was  for  long 
regarded  as  one  of  the  sights  of  Paris.  It  was  an  ex- 
tremely luxurious  building,  like  no  other  in  the  world,  the 
house  and  grounds  being  designed  and  decorated,  regard- 
less of  expense,  by  a  man  of  great  originality,  if  rather 
flamboyant  taste,  who  was  a  past  master  in  the  art  of 
living.  The  mansion  was  not  quite  completed  when  its 
proprietor  viewed  from  its  upper  windows  the  fall  of  the 
Bastille. 

The  garden  was  laid  out  in  the  formal  English  style, 
and  was  full  of  fountains,  rocks,  grottoes,  statues  and 
temples  dedicated  to  Glory,  Friendship,  Bacchus,  etc., 
each  of  which  bore  an  inscription  composed  by  Beau- 
marchais. The  sanctuary  dedicated  to  Friendship  bore 
the  name  of  Dupaty,  accompanied  by  the  words  :  "  We 
also  mourn  his  loss."  This  fact  shows  that  the  much 
discussed  quarrel  between  the  two  men  was  not  of  a  very 
serious  nature. 

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Beaumarchais  and  the  Deluge 

At  a  short  distance  from  this  tribute  to  his  friend  stood 
a  bust  of  his  first  patron,  Paris  Duverney,  with  an  inscrip- 
tion recording  his  gratitude  in  these  words  : 

II  m'instruisit  par  ses  travaux, 
Je  lui  doit  le  peu  que  je  vaux  ; 

whilst  a  Httle  further  on,  under  a  statue  of  Cupid,  he  ex- 
pressed his  anxious  love  for  Eugenie  in  the  lines  : 

O  !  toi  qui  mets  le  trouble  en  plus  d'une  f  amille, 
Je  te  demande.  Amour,  le  bonheur  de  ma  fille. 

Lastly,  over  a  secluded  arbour  he  had  written  a  kind  of 
farewell  to  the  world  : 

Desabuse  comme  Candida 
Et  plus  tolerant  que  Martin, 
Cet  asyle  est  ma  Propontide  : 
J'y  cultive  en  paix  mon  jardin. 

The  property  was  not  large,  but  was  laid  out  with  such 
ingenuity  that  it  had  the  appearance  of  being  much  more 
extensive  than  was  actually  the  case. 

At  the  extremity  of  the  garden,  overlooking  the  road, 
was  a  domed  pavilion  in  the  shape  of  a  rotunda,  with  a 
weathercock  in  the  form  of  a  great  gilded  pen  set  above  a 
globe,  which  turned  with  the  pen.  This  building,  which 
was  inscribed  to  Voltaire  and  bore  the  legend  : 

11  6te  aux  nations  le  bandeau  de  I'erreur 

was  still  standing  in  1835  when  all  else  had  disappeared, 
and  served  the  proprietor  as  a  study.  It  was  furnished  in 
the  most  luxurious  style,  the  writing-desk  alone  costing  thirty 
thousand  francs.  By  the  side  of  this  pavilion  was  an 
arched  gateway  (ornamented  with  Jean  Goujon's  sculptures 
known  as  the  Seine  and  the  Marne,  removed  from  the 
recently  demolished  Porte  Saint-Antoine)  leading  into  the 
garden,  and  thence  to  a  spacious  Italian  court,  in  the 
centre  of  which  was  a  fine  copy  of  The  Fighting  Gladiator. 
The  entrance  hall  of  the  house  was  embellished  with  a 
copy  of  Houdon's  Voltaire. 

A  magnificent  spiral  staircase  of  mahogany,  with 
bronze  balusters,  led  to  the  upper  stories.  All  the  apart- 
ments had  inlaid  floors  of  the  most  precious  woods.  The 
walls  were  decorated  with  the  choicest  works  of  Hubert 

295 


Figaro  :    The  Life  of  Beaumarchais 

Robert  and  Horace  Vernet,  and  the  chimney-pieces  were 
in  Carrara  marble,  supported  by  caryatides,  imported  at 
great  cost  from  Italy. 

Such  was  the  retreat  in  which  the  author  of  Figaro 
hoped  to  pass  his  declining  years. 

With  his  habitual  generosity  he  threw  open  his  garden, 
and  readily  accorded  permission  to  see  over  the  house  to 
everybody  who  expressed  a  desire  to  do  so.  But  he  was 
not  allowed  for  long  to  enjoy  the  pleasures  of  retirement. 
His  mansion  was  destined  to  be  a  continual  source  of 
danger  and  anxiety  to  him  and  his  family,  and  we  soon 
find  him  protesting  that  "  the  onl}^  crime  I  have  com- 
mitted is  that  of  owning  a  pretty  garden."  Within  thirty 
years  of  its  completion  not  a  trace  of  the  house  or  garden 
remained. 

Being  well  aware  of  the  widespread  hatred  which  Ber- 
gasse  had  succeeded  in  arousing  against  him,  Beaumarchais 
avoided  as  far  as  possible  all  interference  in  public  affairs, 
but  deeming  it  unwise  to  refuse,  he  accepted  the  post  of 
President  of  the  district  of  Blancs-Manteaux,  to  which  he 
was  unanimously  elected.  On  the  14th  of  July  he  was 
happy  to  exert  his  authority  to  save  the  lives  of  several 
unfortunate  soldiers  from  the  fury  of  the  people. 

During  the  following  days  the  Mayor  of  Paris  ordered 
him  to  superintend  the  demolition  of  the  Bastille,  and  he 
was  soon  after  elected  a  member  of  the  Municipal  Cor- 
poration. 

Denunciations  now  began  to  rain  upon  him.  On  more 
than  one  occasion  his  house  and  grounds  were  invaded 
and  overrun  by  a  yelling  mob  in  search  of  grain  and  arms, 
of  which  he  was  again  and  again  accused  of  concealing 
immense  stores.  These  noisy  patriots  discovered  that 
the  vast  cellars  were  filled  with  huge  packages  and,  con- 
cluding that  they  had  been  well-informed,  prepared  to 
sack  the  building,  when  further  investigations  showed 
that  the  suspicious  parcels  contained  nothing  more  in- 
criminating than  the  surplus  sheets  of  the  owner's  unlucky 
edition  of  Voltaire. 

Beaumarchais  did  all  he  could  to  conciliate  the  people 
by  making  large  contributions  to  charitable  objects,  by 
inviting  official  visits  of  inspection,  and  broadcasting  these 
facts  with  all  the  ability  of  a  born  publicity  agent. 

296 


Beaumarchais  and  the  Deluge 

In  November,  1789,  however,  he  emerged  from  his 
retreat  to  denounce  with  the  utmost  courage  the  tragedy 
of  Charles  IX.,  by  M.  J.  Chenier,  on  account  of  its  savage 
incendiarism,  at  a  time  when  it  was  as  much  as  a  man's 
hfe  was  worth  to  hiss  that  popular  drama,  and  when  even 
Mirabeau  found  it  expedient  to  profess  pubhcly  his 
admiration  for  that  nauseating  spectacle  of  blood  and 
sawdust. 

A  year  later  we  find  him  addressing  a  comphmentary 
letter  to  Barrere  on  his  eloquent  speech  in  favour  of  com- 
plete liberty  of  religious  worship  ;  and  in  June,  1791,  we 
rather  unexpectedly  find  the  creator  of  Figaro  petitioning 
the  municipal  authorities,  on  behalf  of  the  practising 
Christians  of  his  district,  for  the  clergy  to  be  permitted  to 
celebrate  Mass  more  frequently  in  the  churches  of  his 
parish. 

Meanwhile,  his  beloved  Eugenie  was  finishing  her 
education  at  the  Convent  of  Bon-Secours,  and  it  being 
reported  to  him  that  one  of  her  schoolfellows  was  in 
distress  through  being  unable  to  pay  her  fees,  he  imme- 
diately wrote  to  the  Superior  a  letter  which  reveals  his 
habitual  kindness  of  heart. 

"  I  beg  to  send  you,  madam,  a  note  for  two  hundred 
livres  for  your  unfortunate  pupil.  That  will  pay  her  fees 
for  the  present  year.  The  next  time  I  visit  the  Convent 
I  will  do  myself  the  honour  of  handing  to  you  on  her  behalf 
three  louis,  which  will  give  her  an  allowance  of  six  francs 
a  month  during  this  year,  the  same  amount  that  I  give 
my  daughter.  But  I  implore  you,  madam,  not  to  allow 
my  help  to  influence  her  in  her  liberty  of  choice.  I  should 
be  grieved  if  she  should  be  disturbed  as  to  her  future. 
I  have  not  the  honour  of  knowing  her  :  I  was  moved  solely 
by  the  good  you  told  me  of  her.  The  only  thanks  I  want 
is  that  she  should  be  free  from  anxiety  and  less  unhappy. 
I  beg  you  to  keep  my  secret,  for  I  am  surrounded  by 
bitter  enemies." 

Attached  to  the  MS.  of  this  letter  is  a  touching  httle 
note  of  thanks,  addressed  by  the  poor  girl  to  her  unknown 
benefactor. 

Soon  after  this  episode  Eugenie  left  the  Convent,  and 
to  her  father's  intense  satisfaction  came  to  live  at  home. 

297 


Figaro  :   The  Life  of  Beaumarchais 

He  described  the  day  of  her  return  as  one  of  the  happiest 
moments  of  his  hfe.  Some  verses  he  wrote  in  celebration 
of  this  joyful  event  were  the  cause  of  a  number  of  singularly 
impudent  proposals,  from  complete  strangers,  for  the 
hand  of  the  young  heiress,  and  the  astonished  father 
amused  himself  by  giving  these  precipitate  suitors  a  lesson 
in  propriety. 

On  the  decree  aboHshing  all  titles  being  passed,  he 
wrote  to  his  wife,  on  the  22nd  June,  1790  : 

"  What  will  become  of  us,  my  dear  ?  We  have  lost 
all  our  titles.  We  are  reduced  to  our  surnames,  without 
arms  and  without  liveries  !  What  a  downfall !  The  day 
before  yesterday  I  dined  with  Mme.  de  la  Reyniere,  and 
we  called  her  to  her  face  Mme.  Grimod  :  just  that,  without 
a  tail !  Monseigneur  I'Evcque  de  Rodez  and  Monseigneur 
I'Eveque  d'Agen  got  only  a  monsieur  from  us,  everybody 
was  called  by  his  name  :  it  was  like  coming  out  from  the 
Opera  Ball  last  season,  when  everybody  was  unmasked. 

"  This  morning  I  wrote  to  Mme.  la  Comtesse  de 
Choiseul-Goufiier.  This  is  what  I  said  to  her  :  '  Until 
the  14th  July,  madam,  out  of  respect  for  your  rights,  I 
will  call  you  Comtesse  ;  after  that  date,  you  must  excuse 
me,  if  you  please,  but  it  will  be  only  out  of  courtesy.  .  .  . 

"  On  the  14th  Louis  XIV.  will  be  stripped,  like  every 
other  great  man.  No  more  slaves  at  his  feet  in  the  Place 
des  Victoires.  Oh  !  it  is  most  vexing !  In  order  that 
the  good  Henri  IV.  might  keep  his  four  enchained  statues 
we  pretend  that  they  represent  four  vices  :  it  is  denied, 
but  we  refuse  to  give  way. 

"  On  Sunday  I  made  it  clear  that  I  no  longer  possessed 
any  property  bearing  the  name  of  Beaumarchais,  and  that 
the  decree  was  aimed  at  territorial  names,  not  against 
noms  de  guerre,  and  that  it  was  under  this  name  that  I 
had  always  conquered  my  cowardly  enemies." 

Early  in  1792  a  Belgian  came  to  him  with  the  offer  of 
the  first  refusal  of  sixty  thousand  muskets,  on  condition 
that  the  purchaser  resold  them  to  the  Colonies — this 
stipulation  being  made  by  the  Dutch  Government,  who 
were  afraid  of  getting  into  difficulties  with  Austria  if  they 
were  sold  in  Europe.     "  Money    and    intrigue  :    that  is 

298 


Beaumarchais  and  the  Deluge 

your  sphere  !  "  says  Suzanne  of  Figaro  :  she  might  have 
been  speaking  of  his  creator.  Before  embarking  on  this 
enterprise,  however,  he  consulted  Gudin,  who  gave  him 
some  sound  advice  : 

"  In  revolutionary  times,"  he  said,  "  a  prudent  man 
will  trade  neither  in  arms  nor  foodstuffs."  Unfortunately, 
Uke  all  shy  people,  he  was  easily  discountenanced,  and 
was  soon  led  to  doubt  his  judgment,  when  his  arguments 
were  met  with  undue  vehemence  from  the  other  side. 
Both  he  and  his  friend  had  bitter  cause  to  repent  that  he 
did  not  stand  his  ground.  As  so  often  happened,  Beau- 
marchais convinced  him  that  he  was  wrong,  and  the 
amiable  Gudin  was  too  good-natured  to  insist.  That  is 
why  the  friends  of  very  self-confident  people  are  seldom 
of  much  use  to  them. 

Beaumarchais,  knowing  that  the  French  armies  were 
short  of  small  arms,  saw  in  the  offer  an  excellent  oppor- 
tunity of  combining  profit  and  patriotism.  He  reported 
the  matter  to  the  Minister  for  War,  who  commissioned  him 
to  procure  them,  advancing  for  this  purpose  a  sum  of 
500,000  francs  (then  worth  300,000  francs)  on  the  security 
of  bonds  on  the  City  of  Paris  for  745,000  francs.  The 
Minister  also  promised,  if  necessary,  a  further  advance  to 
the  full  value  of  the  agent's  deposit,  and  to  give  all  the 
help  in  his  power  towards  overcoming  the  resistance  of 
the  Dutch  Government,  which  held  the  arms,  under 
guard,  at  Tervueren. 

But  the  position  of  a  minister  during  the  Revolution 
was,  to  say  the  least,  precarious.  De  Greve  soon  had 
other  things  to  think  about,  and  forgot  Beaumarchais 
and  his  muskets.  Moreover,  on  the  outbreak  of  war  with 
Austria  and  Prussia,  minister  succeeded  minister  with 
bewildering  rapidity  :  "I  have  worn  out  fourteen  or 
fifteen  of  them  during  the  last  few  months  !  "  declared 
the  harassed  Beaumarchais.  He  pestered  them  in  vain 
to  fulfil  their  promises. 

Meanwhile,  his  enemies  took  the  opportunity  to  accuse 
him  of  wilfully  keeping  back  the  arms.  This  charge  was 
made  from  the  tribune  of  the  Legislative  Assembly  by  the 
ex-Capucin  Chabot. 

On  the  9th  of  August,  accordingly,  the  mob  invaded 
his  house  and  grounds,  and  ransacked  the  place  from  top 

299 


Figaro  :   The  Life  of  Beaumarchais 

to  bottom,  whilst  the  owner  stood  imperturbably  looking 
on.  Fortunately,  he  had  already  taken  the  precaution 
of  sending  Eugenie  and  her  mother  to  Havre.  In  spite  of 
the  fact  that  the  invaders  found  nothing  to  arouse  the 
least  suspicion,  Beaumarchais  was  arrested  and  conveyed 
to  the  Abbaye  prison.  A  day  or  two  after  his  arrest,  says 
Gudin,  some  of  his  commercial  rivals  were  permitted  to 
send  a  representative  to  him  proposing  to  purchase  the 
weapons  from  him.  The  hint  was  sufficiently  broad ; 
but  he  replied  with  great  spirit  :  "  Tell  those  who  sent 
you  that  in  prison  I  do  no  business."  He  was  still  at  the 
Abbaye  on  the  30th  of  August — two  days  before  the 
beginning  of  the  September  massacres.  Before  that  day 
was  over  he  was  suddenly  and  unaccountably  released. 
"  That  man's  luck,"  said  a  wag,  "  is  such  that  if  he  were 
being  hanged  the  rope  would  break  !  "  Beaumarchais  was 
informed  that  he  owed  his  freedom  and  his  life  to  Manuel, 
the  Attorney-General.  As,  in  one  of  his  numerous  con- 
troversies, he  had  had  occasion  to  make  fun  of  his  liberator, 
he  thought  that  the  latter  had  avenged  himself  by  this 
act  of  magnanimity.  Several  years  later  he  learned  the 
inner  history  of  this  mysterious  affair — probably  from  the 
heroine  in  one  of  their  frequent  quarrels — and,  as  we  shall 
see  later,  he  was  furious  with  her. 

What  really  happened  was  that  when  a  young  and 
exceedingly  attractive  society  woman,  whom  he  had 
befriended,  heard  of  his  imprisonment,  she  immediately 
made  inquiries  which  pointed  to  Manuel  as  the  person 
whose  influence  would  be  most  powerful  in  saving  her 
lover  from  the  deadly  peril  in  which  he  found  himself. 
Desperate  cases  demand  desperate  remedies.  Without 
hesitating  a  moment,  she  hastened  to  Manuel's  office ; 
solicited  a  private  interview,  which  was  readily  accorded  ; 
made  herself  amiable,  as  she  very  well  knew  how  to  do  ; 
accepted  the  only  kind  of  homage  which  the  great  man's 
limitations  prompted  him  to  offer  ;  and  triumphantly  left 
his  office  with  the  order  for  her  lover's  release  in  her  hands. 

After  this  providential  escape  we  might  naturally 
suppose  that  the  author  of  Figaro  would  have  dropped 
the  accursed  gun-running  expedition  and  devoted  himself 
to  securing  his  own  safety.     Not  at  all.     Quite  early  in 

300 


Beaumarchais  and  the  Deluge 

life  he  had  the  misfortune  to  become  exceedingly  deaf, 
and,  as  he  grew  older,  this  infirmity  did  not  tend  to 
diminish  his  natural  obstinacy.  During  daylight  he  con- 
sented to  hide  himself  in  the  environs  of  Paris,  but  at 
dusk  he  regularly  emerged  from  his  retreat  and  made  his 
way  by  side  streets  to  the  Government  offices,  in  order  to 
worry  the  ministers  about  the  sixty  thousand  muskets 
which  he  had  undertaken  to  secure  for  the  nation  and  his 
enemies  accused  him  of  holding  back.  He  soon  under- 
stood that  Lebrun,  then  Minister  for  War,  intended  to 
take  all  the  credit  of  the  transaction  to  himself  if  it  suc- 
ceeded, and  to  saddle  him  with  the  responsibility  in  case 
of  failure.  So  he  tackled  Danton  on  the  subject.  His 
persistence  ended  by  exasperating  the  great  Tribune,  until 
Danton's  sense  of  the  humours  of  the  situation  getting 
the  better  of  him,  he  burst  into  uproarious  laughter  at 
the  sight  of  this  proscribed  man,  who,  freshly  escaped 
from  the  September  massacres,  should  have  been  safely 
in  hiding,  daring,  night  after  night,  to  beard  the  lions  in 
their  den,  for  the  sake  of  people  who  were  clamouring  for 
his  head. 

In  the  end  the  importunate  agent  made  himself  such 
a  nuisance  that  a  committee  was  appointed,  which  passed 
a  resolution  that  Beaumarchais  had  deserved  well  of  the 
nation,  granted  him  a  passport  to  Holland,  and  ordered 
Lebrun  and  the  French  ambassador  at  The  Hague  to 
place  every  facility  in  his  way  whilst  carrying  out  his 
mission. 

Beaumarchais,  thereupon,  set  out  for  Holland.  A 
letter  we  have  seen  indicates  that  he  j  ourneyed  by  way  of 
England. 

"  M.  de  Beaumarchais,"  says  this  document,  "  is  safely 
arrived  at  Brighthelmstone,  and  has  brought  his  head  with 
him.  He  kept  feeling  the  whole  way  if  it  was  safe,  and 
has  not  ceased  wondering  to  find  it  on  his  shoulders." 

Before  embarking  for  Holland  he  borrowed  a  large 
sum  of  money  (in  case  he  could  not  induce  the  Government 
to  keep  its  promises)  from  an  English  merchant,  a  good 
friend  with  whom  he  had  done  business  for  many  years 
past.  On  his  arrival  at  The  Hague,  he  found  the  secret 
agents  of  Lebrun  industriously  working  against  the  success 
of  his  mission,  and  his  letters  of  protest  to  the  minister 

301 


Figaro  :   The  Life  of  Beaumarchais 

either  remained  unanswered  or  were  evaded.  He  was  at 
last  told  that  the  arms  were  no  longer  required. 

In  the  meantime,  the  Legislative  Assembly  had  been 
dissolved  and  the  National  Convention  elected  in  its  place. 
On  turning  over  the  pages  of  the  Gazette  de  la  Haye, 
on  December  ist,  1792,  he  was  amazed  to  find  himself 
formalty  accused  of  conspiracy,  secret  correspondence  with 
Louis  XVL  and  embezzlement,  the  report  adding  that 
for  the  third  time  the  seals  had  been  placed  upon  his  house. 

Among  the  Dropmore  MSS.  is  a  letter  from  Lord  Auck- 
land to  Lord  Grenville  referring  to  this  matter :  "  I  have 
learned  from  Paris,"  he  wrote  on  the  28th  November, 
1792,  "  that  Beaumarchais,  who  is  here,  will  become  a 
victim  in  his  fortunes  to  the  Revolution,  to  which  his 
talents  so  much  contributed.  It  is  said  that  on  some 
charge  his  house  and  papers  are  seized.  I  cannot  pity 
him." 

A  few  days  later,  urgent  letters  reached  Beaumarchais 
from  his  friends  in  Paris,  informing  him  that  pohce  agents 
were  on  their  way  to  effect  his  arrest  and  bring  him  back 
at  all  costs  to  face  his  trial,  adding  that  he  stood  a  good 
chance  of  being  murdered  en  route.  They  implored  him  to 
fly  to  England  without  a  moment's  delay— sound  advice, 
which  he  lost  no  time  in  following,  as  was  noted  at  the  time 
in  a  second  letter,  dated  December  4th,  1792,  from  Lord 
Auckland  to  Lord  Grenville,  in  these  terms  : 

"  Beaumarchais  lately  went  from  this  place  [Rotter- 
dam] to  England,  where,  though  proscribed  by  his  country- 
men, he  will  do  all  possible  mischief  to  us.  There  are 
others  of  the  same  description  of  exiles  who  are  highly 
dangerous,  and  are  now  said  to  be  in  London,  such  as 
Messrs.  de  Bailly,  de  Chapelher,  de  Liancourt,  de  Nar- 
bonne,  de  Noailles  ;  and  in  addition  to  these,  there  are 
two  hundred  or  three  hundred  emissaries  from  the  Propa- 
gande,  with  allowances  to  hve  in  taverns,  coffee-houses 
and  ale-houses,  and  to  promote  disorder.  These  con- 
siderations have  induced  me  lately  to  say  to  many  of  the 
emigrants  that,  however  ungenerous  it  may  sound,  I  fore- 
see that  it  will  become  necessary  to  turn  them  out  of 
London,  and,  possibly,  a  great  proportion  of  them  out  of 
England." 

30« 


Beautnarchais  and  the  Deluge 

On  a  later  visit,  in  fact,  Beaumarchais  was  given  three 
days  in  which  to  leave  the  country. 

Shortly  after  his  arrival  in  London  he  received  a  copy 
of  Lecointre's  speech,  denouncing  him  to  the  Convention 
as  "an  out  and  out  vicious  man,  who  has  reduced 
immorality  into  a  principle  and  rascality  into  a 
system." 

This  was  too  much  for  Beaumarchais,  and  he  resolved 
to  return  to  Paris  and  defend  himself  in  person.  For- 
tunately for  him,  this  foolhardy  experiment  did  not 
commend  itself  to  the  cool  judgment  of  the  Englishman 
who  had  lent  him  his  money,  and  before  he  could  carry 
out  his  project  he  found  himself  lodged  in  the  King's 
Bench  Prison  for  debt.  As  he  himself  quaintly  expressed 
it  in  a  letter  to  his  business  manager,  Gudin  de  la  Ferliere, 
"  My  good  Englishman  thought  it  too  much  to  lose  his 
money  and  his  friend  at  one  blow." 

The  author  of  Figaro  beguiled  the  tedium  of  his  im- 
prisonment by  composing  a  voluminous  pamphlet  in  his 
defence,  and  addressed  a  letter  to  the  President  of  the 
Convention  stating  that  he  proposed  to  return  to  Paris 
with  the  least  possible  delay  to  defend  himself  in  person 
against  his  accusers. 

Although  his  English  friend  did  everything  possible 
for  his  comfort,  the  prisoner  chafed  at  his  confinement 
and  knew  no  peace  until  Gudin,  his  manager,  had  succeeded 
in  raising  the  money  to  liquidate  his  debt,  and  this  being 
paid,  he  left  the  prison  and  hastened  to  Paris. 

Immediately  upon  his  arrival  in  the  capital,  he  set 
about  printing  and  circulating  six  thousand  copies  of  his 
justification.     In  this  pamphlet,  he  boldly  declares  : 

"  I  would  defy  the  Devil  himself  to  make  a  success  of 
any  transaction  in  this  awful  time  of  disorder  called 
liberty  ;  "  and  after  a  generous  tribute  to  the  heroic  Mile, 
de  Sombreuil,  he  dares  to  make  fun  of  Marat  himself, 
then  at  the  height  of  his  power. 

"  A  little  man,"  he  says,  "  with  black  hair,  hooked 
nose  and  frightful  countenance,  came  forward  and  spoke 
in  a  whisper  to  the  President  ;  shall  I  tell  you  who  he 
was  ?  0  !  my  readers  !  It  was  the  great,  the  just — in  one 
word,  the  genile  Marat." 

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Figaro  :   The  Life  of  Beaumarchais 

He  even  took  upon  himself  the  defence  of  the  King's 
ministers  accused  with  him,  and  told  the  present  rulers  : 

"  In  matters  of  national  importance,  the  Royalist 
ministers  alone  have  done  their  duty  ;  all  the  obstruction 
has  come  from  the  popular  ministers.  ...  I  was  sub- 
jected to  annoyance  under  the  former  Government,  but 
even  its  worst  vexation  was  mere  playfulness  compared 
with  the  horror  of  the  present  administration." 

When  we  consider  that  these  words  were  written  and 
widely  circulated  in  March,  1793,  at  the  height  of  the 
Terror,  it  is  clear  that  the  author  of  Figaro  was  not  lacking 
in  courage.  "  The  marvel  is,"  as  Saint e-Beuve  remarked, 
"  that  he  preserved  his  head  upon  his  shoulders." 

Beaumarchais  succeeded  in  completely  vindicating 
himself  in  the  eyes  of  the  Convention,  and  that  required 
a  great  deal  of  doing.  The  decree  against  him  was  sus- 
pended, the  sequestration  of  his  property  raised,  and  he 
was  given  the  embarrassing  choice  of  standing  his  trial 
or  of  making  another  effort  to  secure  the  muskets  from 
Holland,  now  an  enemy  country,  or  of  at  least  preventing 
them  from  falling  into  the  hands  of  the  EngUsh. 

Fortunately,  during  his  imprisonment  in  London,  he 
had  foreseen  that  this  might  happen,  and  had  arranged 
for  his  friend,  the  Enghsh  merchant,  to  purchase  the  arms, 
ostensibly  on  his  own  account,  and  hold  them  at  Tervueren 
until  he  himself  was  in  a  position  to  dispose  of  them.  But 
here  the  British  Government  stepped  in  to  propound  two 
propositions  to  this  obliging  friend  :  We  have  reason  to 
view  this  deal  with  some  doubt  :  either  it  is  a  genuine 
transaction,  or  it  is  not.  In  the  first  case  we  will  take  over 
the  weapons  and  pay  you  a  fair  price  for  them  ;  in  the 
second  case  we  shall  confiscate  them.  But  the  English- 
man made  such  an  outcry  against  this  threatened  action 
that  the  matter  was  for  a  time  dropped. 

The  Committee  of  Public  Safety  now  gave  Beaumarchais 
to  understand  that  they  were  tired  of  waiting,  and  reminded 
him  that  his  family  and  property  were  at  hand  to  answer 
for  his  zeal  and  loyalty.  With  this  encouragement, 
the  emissary  again  set  out  on  his  travels.  His  mission 
necessitated  his  visiting  Amsterdam,  Bale,  London  and 
Hamburg,  to  arrange  for  the  weapons  to  pass  through 
the  hands  of  three  fictitious  purchasers  successively,  and 

304 


Beaumarchais  and  the  Deluge 

for  their  shipment  to  France  via  the  United  States.  During 
these  intricate  negotiations,  the  only  attention  the  Com- 
mittee paid  to  their  emissary  was  to  allow  his  name  to 
be  placed  on  the  fatal  list  of  emigres,  to  seize  his  property, 
and  arrest  his  wife,  daughter  and  sister.  They  were 
conveyed  to  the  Port  Libre  Prison,  and  for  eleven  days 
remained  under  the  shadow  of  the  guillotine.  Im- 
mediately after  the  fall  of  Robespierre  they  were  released 
and  allowed  to  occupy  part  of  their  house.  Another 
denunciation  being  launched  against  the  unlucky  Beau- 
marchais, on  account  of  the  long  delay  in  fulfilling  his 
impossible  mission,  compelled  him  to  escape  to  Hamburg, 
and  served  to  reveal  to  the  British  authorities  the  secret 
of  the  Tervueren  armoury.  They  promptly  seized  the 
weapons  and  transported  them  to  Plymouth. 

For  some  weeks  after  his  arrival  in  the  German  city 
Beaumarchais  lived  in  dire  poverty,  until  a  providential 
remittance  from  one  of  his  American  agents  relieved  him 
from  actual  want.  But  he  was  extremely  unhappy, 
for  he  was  cut  off  from  all  communication  with  his  family. 
His  only  solace  was  that  he  found  one  or  two  old  friends 
among  his  fellow  exiles,  including  General  Dumouriez,  who 
soon  after  crossed  to  England,  where  he  died  at  Henley  in 
1823.  It  was  not  until  July,  1796,  that  Beaumarchais  was 
allowed  to  return  to  France. 


305  ao 


CHAPTER  XXXII 

THE   exile's   return,   LAST   YEARS   AND    DEATH 

THE  exile  reached  home  on  the  5th  July,  1796,  and  his 
first  care  was  to  throw  all  his  energy  into  an 
effort  to  save  the  remains  of  his  shattered  fortune,  but 
although  he  succeeded  in  assuring  a  modest  and  gradually 
increasing  income  to  his  family,  his  last  years  were  consumed 
in  a  grinding  struggle  against  impecuniosity.  Within 
ten  years  after  his  death,  however,  the  faithful  steward 
Gudin  was  able  to  report  to  his  patron's  daughter  that 
her  fortune  then  amounted  to  about  one  million  francs. 

Immediately  after  his  return,  Beaumarchais  wrote  to 
his  first  biographer  that  he  had  just  married  his  daughter 
"  to  a  young  man  who  was  determined  to  have  her  though 
everybody  knew  I  was  ruined  ;  she,  her  mother  and  I 
all  thought  it  our  duty  to  reward  this  generous  attach- 
ment. Five  days  after  my  return  I  made  him  this  hand- 
some present."  Eugenie's  husband  was  Andre  Toussaint 
Delarue,  who  in  1789  had  served  as  Lafayette's  aide-de- 
camp in  the  American  War  of  Independence,  and  was  at 
the  time  of  his  wife's  interview  with  Napoleon  a 
Commissioner  of  Excise,  Under  the  Restoration  and  the 
Government  of  July  he  was  Colonel  of  the  8th  Legion  of 
the  National  Guard  and  Brigadier-General.  They  had 
two  sons,  one  of  whom  became,  hke  his  father,  a  Brigadier- 
General,  the  other  a  Government  official  in  the  Ministry 
of  Finance  ;  and  a  daughter,  Palmyre,  who  married  M. 
Eugene  Poncet. 

Having  thus  safeguarded  his  daughter's  future,  Beau- 
marchais next  presented  his  account  to  the  Government 
for  the  large  sums  he  had  expended  in  his  unsuccessful 
mission,  and  his  claim  for  the  return  of  the  security  he 
had  deposited  in  their  hands.  But  since  the  weapons 
had  never  reached  them  they  were  not  anxious  to  make 

306 


'^^.s' 


From  a  lithograph  by  Delpech,  after  a  drawing  by  Belliard. 


[To  face  p    306. 


The  Exile's  Return,  Last  Years  and  Death 

restitution.  After  vexatious  negotiations,  lasting  over 
two  years,  the  Directory  appointed  a  special  commission 
to  inquire  into  the  subject,  and  the  latter  fixed  the  amount 
due  to  the  claimant  at  997,875  francs.  But  the  Directory 
refused  to  adopt  the  finding  of  their  Committee,  and 
appointed  a  second  commission,  who  not  only  reversed 
the  decision,  but  asserted  that  the  creditor  was  actually 
the  debtor  to  the  State  to  the  amount  of  500,000  francs. 
Beaumarchais  spent  the  rest  of  his  life  in  vainly  seeking 
justice  from  his  country  and  from  the  United  States. 
At  one  time  he  was  so  impoverished  that  he  had  the 
greatest  difficulty  in  finding  the  money  to  pay  the  tax 
on  the  two  hundred  windows  of  his  house. 

Amid  these  and  other  worries,  and  in  spite  of  the  fact 
that  he  had  now  become,  as  he  says,  "  as  deaf  as  a  sepulchral 
urn,"  he  maintained  much  of  his  gaiety  and  was  as  alert 
and  interested  as  ever  in  the  questions  of  the  day.  He 
constantly  wrote  to  the  papers,  now  to  draw  attention  to 
the  scandalous  exposure  of  the  remains  of  the  great  Turenne 
among  the  skeletons  of  animals  in  the  Botanical  Gardens, 
and  now  pleading  for  steps  to  be  taken  to  secure  the  release 
of  Lafayette  and  his  fellow  prisoners  at  Olmiitz.  Nor 
had  he  lost  the  secret  of  interesting  the  public.  A  journal 
having  inexactly  quoted  the  charming  inscription  which 
he  had  engraved  on  the  collar  of  his  pet  spaniel,  he  wrote 
to  Roederer,  the  editor,  thanking  him  for  the  complimentary 
tone  of  his  article,  but  begging  him  to  insert  in  his  next 
issue  the  correct  version  : 

"  I  am  Miss  FoUette  ;    Beaumarchais  belongs  to  me. 
"  We  live  on  the  Boulevard." 

As  soon  as  he  had  provided  for  the  immediate  wants 
of  his  family,  Beaumarchais  wrote  to  Gudin,  who  was 
living  in  poverty  in  the  country,  sending  him  money,  and 
begging  him  to  come  to  Paris  and  live  with  him  for  the 
rest  of  his  days.  Gudin  gives  a  moving  account  of  their 
meeting  after  these  long  years  of  danger  and  separation. 
They  never  parted  again.  Friendship  is  like  a  garden  : 
what  we  get  out  of  it  largely  depends  upon  what  we  put 
into  it.  This,  Beaumarchais  thoroughly  understood  :  that 
is  why  he  never  lost  a  friend  in  his  life  ;  and  it  is  a 
remarkable  fact  that,  without  exception,  the  enemies  who 

307  20* 


Figaro  :   The  Life  of  Beaumarchais 

embittered  so    many   years  of   his   existence    knew  him 
either  very  httle  or  not  at  all. 

His  charity  was  boundless,  and  when  he  died  Gudin 
de  la  Ferliere  found  that  he  had  secretly  spent  no  less  than 
900,000  francs  in  relieving  the  distress  of  various  unfor- 
tunate artists,  men  of  letters,  and  the  families  of  impover- 
ished gentlefolk.  Even  some  of  his  most  relentless  enemies 
profited  by  this  charity.  On  the  13th  February,  1802, 
his  widow  wrote  :  "  Madame  Goezman  became  destitute 
and  he  succoured  her  ;  Arnaud-Baculard  figures  on  this 
list  for  3,600  livres  ;  Dorat,  Fabre  d' Eglantine  and  others 
drew  on  his  purse  for  sums  which  were  never  returned." 
Are  there  many  people  who  could  forgive  and  forget  such 
cruel  injuries  as  readily  and  completely  as  Beaumarchais  ? 

"  Stopping  at  an  inn  on  one  of  his  journeys,"  relates 
Gudin,  "  the  host  told  Beaumarchais  that  there  was  a 
woman  of  rank  upstairs  who  had  been  suddenly  seized  with 
illness  and  was  lying  there  in  an  extremely  critical  con- 
dition, without  money  and  without  assistance.  Beau- 
marchais immediately  sent  for  a  doctor,  supplied  all  her 
wants,  and  stayed  with  her  until  she  was  convalescent. 
When  she  was  well  he  found  that  she  was  young  and 
pretty  ;  he  took  her  back  to  Paris.  She  loved  him  ever 
after.'"  Gudin  proceeds  to  defend  his  friend's  knight- 
errantry  against  the  possible  attacks  of  the  Simon  Pures 
of  his  day.  "  Oh  !  nineteenth-century  Pharisees  !  "  he 
cries,  "  how  uncharitable  you  are  !  I  will  not  tell  you  a 
host  of  other  adventures  that  I  know  of,  which  I  would 
love  to  whisper  into  the  ear  of  the  good  La  Fontaine  or  of 
the  good  Queen  of  Navarre,  who  were  as  virtuous  as  you 
are,  but  had  neither  your  barrenness  of  heart  nor  your 
aridity  of  mind. 

"  Beaumarchais,  far  from  having  your  stiffness,  forgave 
the  erring  sheep  like  the  good  shepherd,  and  never  threw 
the  first  stone  at  anybody.  He  helped  the  unfortunate, 
even  at  the  risk  of  falling  in  love  with  them  and  involving 
himself  in  adventures  far  more  dangerous  than  your 
condemnation." 

Such  is  Gudin's  discreet  but  graphic  narrative  of  the 
origin  of  his  friend's  relations  with  Mme.  Amelie  Houret, 

308 


The  Exile's  Return,  Last  Years  and  Death 

Comtesse  de  la  Marinaie,  the  lady  who  so  gallantly  came 
to  her  lover's  rescue  during  the  Terror.  They  first  met  in 
1787.  His  first  written  communication  to  her  is  in  these 
terms  : 

"  I  received  the  letter  (dated  the  29th  of  last  month) 
with  which  you  honoured  me,  Madam,  upon  my  return 
from  the  country.  Although  I  have  more  good- will  than 
means  of  serving  you  and  more  courage  than  power,  your 
kind  and  frank  confidence  must  not  remain  entirely  without 
response.  If  I  cannot  help  you,  I  can  at  least  listen  to 
you,  counsel  and  console  you.  You  are  right  in  preferring 
to  tell  me  your  troubles  in  my  house  rather  than  to  have 
recourse  to  all  the  expedients  necessary  to  arrange  an 
interview  at  your  Convent.  But  I  have  to  return  to  Chan- 
tilly,  and  shall  not  be  back  until  next  Thursday  ;  excuse 
me  until  that  date,  and  then  choose  any  morning  that 
will  best  suit  your  convenience.  I  do  not  know  what  I 
can  do  for  you,  but  the  tone  of  your  letter  makes  me 
extremely  desirous  of  being  able  to  do  something.  I  will 
advise  you  immediately  of  my  return  ;  and,  then,  pray 
come  whenever  you  like,  and  I  shall  await  you  with  all 
the  respect  due  to  your  misfortune,  your  sex  and  your 
spirit,  from  him  who  honours  you  with  all  his  heart. 

"  P.  Caron  de  Beaumarchais." 

The  next  letter  in  this  correspondence,  which  has  so 
strangely  come  down  to  us,  shows  Beaumarchais  in  some 
alarm,  seeking  rather  half-heartedly  to  cool  the  ardour  of 
the  lady's  pursuit. 

"  I  have  read  your  memorandum,"  he  writes,  "  which  is 
as  extraordinary  as  you  are,  most  astonishing  creature. 
I  return  it  to  you,  although  I  was  greatly  tempted  to  take 
a  copy  of  it.  But  you  entrusted  it  to  my  probity,  and  I 
send  it  back  to  you  intact  as  I  received  it,  though  I  could 
not  resist  reading  it  to  four  or  five  friends,  suppressing, 
of  course,  names,  places  and  other  details. 

"  You  have  far  too  much  wit  ;  that  is  what  both  I 
and  my  friends  think.  Your  style,  as  original  as  your 
method  of  expressing  yourself,  and  your  strength  of 
character  delighted  everybody.     One  or  two  of  the  gayer 

309 


Figaro  :   The  Life  of  Beaumarchais 

ones,  in  fact,  were  eager  to  make  the  writer's  acquaintance  ; 
but  I  contented  myself  with  enjoying  their  pleasure  and 
admiration,  without  revealing  your  secret.  And  now, 
beautiful  imperious  one,  what  do  you  intend  to  do  with 
me  ?  In  the  first  place,  I  want  never  to  see  you  again  : 
you  are  an  incendiary,  and  whether  you  will  or  no,  set 
fire  to  everything.  ...  I  am  happy  and  at  peace  with 
myself.  I  have  renounced  your  sex  for  ever.  Let  us 
reason  together,  if  we  can.  I  know  your  business  as  well 
as  you  know  it  yourself  ;  but  how  can  I  help  you  ?  What 
do  you  intend  to  do  for  your  husband  ?  No  doubt  you 
will  explain  it  to  me  :  be  frank  and  open  with  me.  .  .  . 
But  no  more  interviews  ...  or  this  dainty  little  woman 
with  her  lofty  ideas  will  end  by  making  my  heart  her 
plaything.  No  !  no  !  let  us  call  a  halt  while  there  is  yet 
time.  Write  to  me  what  you  think,  feel,  wish,  demand  of 
me ;  I  am  your  counsellor,  your  respectful  admirer,  but 
not  yet  your  friend.  Heaven  preserve  me  from  your 
charms  ! 

"  P.  Caron  de  Beaumarchais." 

But  it  is  difficult  to  conduct  a  love  affair  on  a  basis  of 
limited  liability,  especially  with  an  inflammatory  creature 
like  the  Comtesse  de  la  Marinaie,  and  Beaumarchais  soon 
found  himself  hopelessly  involved  in  a  devouring  passion, 
from  which  he  never  succeeded  in  freeing  himself. 

The  last  of  this  series  of  unpubhshed  letters  that  we 
have  seen  is  from  the  lady,  and  is  dated  the  nth — and 
marked  as  finished  at  eight  o'clock  in  the  morning  of  the 
I2th — of  Vendemaire  (the  2nd  and  3rd  November,  1798). 
What  is  evidently  a  copy  of  her  lover's  reply  is  written 
between  the  lines.  The  letter  and  answer  show  that  Beau- 
marchais has  just  been  informed  of  the  means  employed 
five  years  before  to  procure  his  release,  in  the  course  of 
a  furious,  jealous  quarrel  with  his  tantalizing  mistress. 

The  whole  correspondence  provides  a  melancholy 
commentary  on  the  theme  that  a  man's  fate  is  his  tem- 
perament, and  that,  in  spite  of  the  superficial  modifica- 
tions of  character  wrought  by  time,  circumstances  and 
education,  the  temperament  alone  remains  steadfast  and 
unchanging  to  the  end. 

When   Beaumarchais   put   into   Figaro's   mouth   those 

310 


The  Exile's  Return,  Last  Years  and  Death 

terrible  words  :  "I  have  seen  everything,  done  every- 
thing, worn  out  everything  .  .  .  and  now  .  .  .  disillu- 
sion !  .  .  .  utter  disillusion  !  "  he  little  thought  that  he 
was  describing  the  fate  reserved  for  himself. 

In  perusing  these  letters  the  feeling  uppermost  in  the 
minds  of  most  readers  would  be,  we  think,  one  of  com- 
passion. 

On  the  night  of  the  17th  of  May,  1799,  Beaumarchais, 
apparently  in  perfect  health,  kissed  his  wife  good-night 
at  the  head  of  the  staircase,  after  an  evening  passed  in 
bright  conversation,  surrounded  by  his  family  and  friends, 
and  was  the  next  morning  found  by  his  valet  dead  in  bed. 
The  cause  of  death  was  apoplexy,  but  its  suddenness  gave 
rise  to  some  suspicion  of  suicide. 

"  Nepomucene  Lemercier,"  says  Doctor  Poumies  de  la 
Siboutie  in  his  Recollections  of  a  Parisian,  "  was  very 
fond  of  Beaumarchais  and  often  spoke  of  his  wit  and  social 
talent,  but  he  always  suspected  that  his  wonderful  spirits 
concealed  some  deep  and  abiding  grief.  As  the  latter 
grew  older,  he  became  more  and  more  addicted  to  philo- 
sophic discussion.  He  was  for  ever  cogitating  about  the 
immortality  of  the  soul,  and  pressing  Lemercier  for  his 
opinion  of  suicide.  Lemercier  absolutely  denied  the  right 
of  man  to  take  his  own  life  :  sometimes  Beaumarchais 
agreed  with  him,  at  other  times  he  would  argue  and  urge 
the  cause  of  self-destruction.  He  probably  shared  Lemer- 
cier's  views  in  his  secret  heart  ;  but  there  are  cogent 
reasons  for  thinking  that  he  died  of  poison,  self-adminis- 
tered." An  appended  note  asserts  that  Lemercier  made 
an  emphatic  statement  to  that  effect  at  a  dinner  given 
by  General  Marescot  on  April  25th,  1825. 

Nevertheless,  we  believe  the  suspicion  to  be  entirely 
without  foundation.  Beaumarchais  was,  as  we  have  seen, 
a  man  of  proved  courage,  and  never  throughout  his  career 
admitted  himself  to  be  beaten.  He  was  in  the  midst  of 
the  struggle  to  re-establish  his  fortune,  and  his  adoration 
of  his  daughter,  if  nothing  else,  would  preclude  from  his 
mind  all  idea  of  deserting  her  in  the  difficult  circumstances 
in  which  she  found  herself.  Enough  has  been  said  to 
account  for  his  death  in  a  natural  way. 

3" 


Figaro  :   The  Life  of  Beaumarchais 

In  youth  the  passions  may  be  held  in  check  by  the 
mind  ;   in  age  they  have  a  more  effective  curb — the  body. 

Writing  to  Mme.  Dujard  a  few  days  after  her  husband's 
death,  Mme.  de  Beaumarchais  says  : 

"  Our  loss  is  irreparable.  The  companion  of  twenty- 
five  years  of  my  life  has  gone,  leaving  me  only  useless 
regrets,  a  dreadful  loneliness,  and  memories  that  can  never 
fade.  .  .  .  He  was  always  gracious  in  forgiving  injuries 
and  readily  forgot  ill-usage.  He  was  a  good  father,  a 
zealous  and  trusty  friend,  a  born  defender  of  the  absent 
who  were  attacked  in  his  presence.  Superior  to  all  those 
petty  jealousies  so  rife  among  men  of  letters,  he  was  always 
ready  to  counsel  and  encourage  those  who  sought  his 
advice  and  generously  to  assist  them  with  his  purse.  From 
the  philosophic  point  of  view  his  end  should  be  looked  upon 
as  a  mercy  ;  he  slipped  out  of  this  laborious  life,  or  rather 
his  life  slipped  away  from  him,  without  struggle,  without 
pain,  without  any  of  those  heart-rending  farewells  to  those 
who  were  dear  to  him.  He  quitted  this  life  as  unconsciously 
as  he  entered  it." 

Mme.  de  Beaumarchais  died  on  the  ist  April,  1816. 


312 


A    SELECTED    BIBLIOGRAPHY 

WORKS  OF  BEAUMARCHAIS 

Beaumarchais  (P.  A.  Caron  de)  :  (Euvres.  Nouv.  edn.,  augmentee  de 
quatre  pieces  de  theatre  et  de  documents  divers  inedits,  avec 
une  introduction  par  E.  Fournier  ;  1876,     Coloured  plates. 

(Euvres.     Nouv.  edn.,  precedee  d'une  notice  biographique  par 

L.  Moland  ;  1874. 

OEuvres  completes ;  .  .  .  notice  sur  sa  vie  et  ses  ouvrages,  par 

Saint-Marc  Girardin  ;  6  vols.,  1828. 

Theatre  de  B.     Pub.  par  G.  d'Heylli  et  F.  de  Marescot ;  4  vols., 

1869-71. 

Lettres  des  Sieurs  de  Beaumarchais  et  Daudet,  citees  a  I'audi- 

ence  du  14  Mars,  1789,  dans  la  cause  du  Sieur  Kornmann ;  1789. 

Manuscripts  in  the  Bibliotheque  Nationale,  the  Bibliotheque 

de  I'Arsenal,  the  Comedie  Frangaise,  the  British  Museum,  and 
in  private  ownership. 

Memoires  de  Beaumarchais  dans  I'affaire    Goezman.    Nouv. 

edn.,  collationnee  ...  sur  les  editions  originales  [with  notice  hy 
Sainte-Beuve)  ;    1873. 

Reponse  a  tous  les  libellistes  et  pamphletistes,  passes,  presents 

et  futurs  ;  Kell.,  1787. 

Petition  a  la  Convention  Nationale  relative  au  decret  d'accu- 

sation  rendu  contre  lui  dans  la  seance  du  28  Nov.,  1792. 

Examen  du  decret  d'accusation  de  P.  A.  C.  de  B sur 

I'affaire  des  fusils  de  Hollande  et  resume  de  sa  justification  ;  1793. 

Berville  (St.  A.)  et  Barriere  (J.  F.),  Edrs.  :  L'Incarceration  et  les 
terreurs  paniques  de  Beaumarchais.  [Collection  de  Memoires, 
1821.) 

BIOGRAPHICAL  AND  GENERAL 

Arneth  (A.  von)  Ritter  :  Beaumarchais  und  Sonnenfels  ;  1868,  Wien. 

et  Geoffroy  (A.),  Edrs.  :    Correspondance  secrete  entre  Marie 

Theresa  et  le  Comte  de  Mercy- Argenteau  ;  1874. 
313 


A  Selected  Bibliography 

Bachaumont  (L.  Petit  de)  :  Memoires  secrets  pour  servir  k  I'histoire 

de  la  republique  des  lettres  en  France ;    36  vols.,  Amsterdam, 

1777-1789. 
Beaumarchais  and  Sophie  Arnould.     See  Westminster  Review,  vol. 

xlii.,  p.  146. 
Bettelheim  (A.)  :  Beaumarchais  :  Eine  Biographic  ;  1886. 
Bigelow  {Hon.  John)  :  Beaumarchais  the  Merchant ;  1870. 
Bonnefon  (P.)  ;  Beaumarchais  ;  etude  ;   1887. 
Bonneville  de  Marsangy  (Louis)  :  Madame  de  Beaumarchais,  d'apres 

sa  correspondance  inedite  ;    1890. 
Brissot  (J.  A.)  :  Memoires  ;  2  vols.,  1830. 
Campan  (J.  L.  H.)  :  Memoires  sur  la  vie  privee  de  Marie  Antoinette  ; 

3  vols.,  1822. 
Chenier  (M.  J.)  :  Theatre. 
Colle  (Charles)  :    Journal  historique,  ou  Memoires  critiques  et  lit- 

teraires,  1748-1772  ;  3  vols.,  1868. 
Cordier    (H.)  :    BibHographie  des  (Euvres  de  Beaumarchais,  etc. 

1883. 
Cousin    d'Avalon :     Beaumarchaisiana,    ou    Recueil     d'anecdotes, 

etc.     1812. 
Diderot  (D.)  :  GEuvres. 

Dumont  (E.)  :   Souvenirs  sur  Mirabeau.     1832. 
;fcon  de  Beaumont   (C.  G.  L.  A.  d')  :   Pieces  relatives  aux  Demeles 

entre  Mile.  d'Eon  de  Beaumont  .  .  ,  et    le    Sieur  Caron  dit 

Beaumarchais.    1778. 
Gaillardet  (F.)  :   Memoires  sur  la  Chevaliere  d':6on  .  .  .  n.  d. 
Goethe  (J.  W.  von)  :  Werke. 
Goezman  (G.  J.)  :  Memoire.     1773. 
Grimm  (F.  M.  von)  :    Correspondance  htteraire,  philosophique  et 

critique,  etc.    17  vols.,  1813. 
Gudin  de  la  Brenellerie  (P.  P.)  :  Histoire  de  Beaumarchais  ;  1888. 
Hallays  (A.)  :  Beaumarchais.    1897.     {Les  grands  ecrivains  frangais.) 
Huot  (P.)  :  Beaumarchais  en  Allemagne.     1869. 
Intermediaire  des  Chercheurs  et  Curieux  [various  volumes). 
Jal  (A.)  :  Beaumarchais.     See  Dictionnaire  critique  de  Biographic  et 

d'Histoire.    1872. 
Kite  (E.  S.) :  Beaumarchais  and  the  War  of  American  Independence  ; 

2  vols.,  1919,  Boston. 
Kornmann   (G.)  :    Memoire  du  Sieur  Kornmann,   en  reponse  au 

memoire  du  Sieur  de  Beaumarchais.    1787. 
314 


A  Selected  Bibliography 

Kommann  G. :   M^moire  sur  une  question  d'adult^re,  de  s6duction 

et  de  diffamation  pour  le  S.  Kornmann,  contra  ...  P.  A.  C. 

deB  .  .  .  1787. 
Le  Sage  (A.  R.)  :  Theatre. 
La  Harpe  (J.  F.)  :    Beaumarchais.     See  Lycee,  ou  Cours  de  Lit- 

t6rature  .  .  .  Ille  partie,  i8e  siecle,  chap.  v. 
Ligne    (C.  J.    de)   Prince:    Memoires  et   melanges  historiques  et 

litt^raires.     5  vols.,  1827-29. 
Lintilhac  (E.)  :  Beaumarchais  et  ses  ceuvres  ;  1887.     Portrait. 
Lomenie  (L.  de)  :  Beaumarchais  et  son  temps,  etc.  ;  2  vols.,  1856. 
Mantzius  (Karl)  :    History  of  Theatrical  Art.     Vol.  vi.,  Classicism 

and  Romanticism.     Trans,  by  C.  Archer  ;  1921. 
Marin  (F.  L.  C.)  :  Memoire  .  .  .  contre  .  .  .  C.  de  B.  [1773]. 
Marivaux  (P.  Carlet  de)  :  Theatre. 
Marsan  (Jules)  :   Beaumarchais  et  les  affaires  d'Amerique  :   Lettres 

inedites  ;    1919. 
Mirabeau  (H.  G.  Riquetti,  Comte  de)  :   Reponse  a  I'ecrivain  des  ad- 

ministrateurs  de  la  Compagnie  des  Eaux  de  Paris  [P.  A.  C.  de 

B.]. 
Oberkirch  (H.  L.  de)  Baronne :    Memoires ;  pub.  par  le  Comte  de 

Montbrison  ...  2  vols.,  1853. 
Poumids  de  la  Siboutie  :    Recollections  of  a  Parisian  (1789-1863) ; 

1911. 
Regnard  (J.  F.)  :  Theatre. 

Robiquet  (Paul)  :  Theveneau  de  Morande  ;  Etude.    1882. 
Royer  (Clement)  :    Etude  sur  les  Memoires  de  Beaumarchais  .  .  . 

1872. 
Sainte-Beuve  (C.  A.)  :  Beaumarchais.     {In  "  Causeries  du  Lundi.") 
Sartine  (A.  R.  J.  G.  G.  de)  :  Journal. 
Sedaine  (M.  J.)  :   Theatre. 

Vie  priv6e,  politique  et  litteraire  de  Beaumarchais  ;  1802. 
Voltaire  (F.  Arouet  de)  :   (Euvres. 
Walpole  (Horace),  Earl  of  Orford  :   Letters  ;   edited  by  Mrs.  Paget 

Toynbee.    Vols,  ix.,  xiii.,  xiv.    1903-1905. 
Weber  (Joseph)  :   M6moires  concernant  Marie  Antoinette  ;  3  vols. 

Portraits.     Londres,  1804-1809. 


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